The Heart Of A Sith
by Shady-777
Summary: Oh no! The younglings are trapped in the temple with Darth Vader closing in on them! All seems lost until a visitor from a parallel universe arrives...a visitor with the power to change the course of history. Enter Darth Vulcanus, aka Luke Skywalker.
1. Keeping Hope Alive

_**A/N: **This is a little side story that ties in directly with my other Star Wars fic __**"**__**Twisted Realities****". **_

_**If you haven't read "****Twisted Realities****": **Don't worry! It's not crucial that you read that before this. It probably won't confuse you too much. The only vital info you need to know at this point is that Darth Vulcanus is an alternate-universe Luke Skywalker and that he has in his possession a crystal that allows him to travel to other universes, other realities. In this case, he winds up in the Jedi Temple in the normal Episode III universe just as Anakin is going on his killing spree. Just so you know ahead of time, there are a few things explained in "Twisted Realities" that I won't be covering here. Check it out if you get too confused — I guarantee it will give you a better idea of what's going on._

_**"**__**Twisted Realities**__**"**__** fans: **__This story is a direct-tie in with "Twisted Realities" and takes place at a point in the story I have purposely chosen to leave shrouded in mystery for the time being. You don't have to read this to continue making sense out of that fic — both of these stories can stand alone, although you will definitely see some of the effects this little side-adventure has on "Twisted Realites". _

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_**Chapter 1**

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_Well, that went like a dream. _Darth Vulcanus thought wryly, _Except for the parts where I don't know where I am and my dimension-hopping Cindray crystal just vanished. Is it supposed to do that? I didn't think it was supposed to do that. It never did the other twenty times we used it. What in the name of Tatooine is going on here?_

Good question.

The corridor he was standing in could have been any one of the thousands of corridors in Praguet alone. This didn't feel like Praguet though. He could sense several life-forms in the nearby vicinity, a few of which were strong with the Force.

Jedi, perhaps?

Maybe.

The possibility didn't worry Darth Vulcanus: he was an exceptionally powerful Sith. A dozen Jedi masters could corner him in their own temple and he would emerge minutes later with all of their lightsabers to add to his collection. He didn't just have access to the powers of the Dark Side, he _was_ those powers. Nothing challenged him and survived.

Still, he found himself a bit on edge. Something didn't feel right. Not threatening, really, but _wrong_. Out of place.

The door directly behind him slid open with a mechanical buzz, and Vulcanus whirled, fully ready to face whatever surprises may await.

Two Storm Troopers stood in the threshold. Upon seeing someone they did not know on the premises, they immediately leveled their blasters at him.

"Die Jedi! " they greeted, just before opening fire.

"_What?! _Have you gone mad?!" Vulcanus brought up one hand and the blaster fire was instantly absorbed in an invisible barrier. "Do you fools have any idea who I am?"

The Storm Troopers didn't answer. Whatever expressions might be manifesting on their nearly-identical faces were hidden by the large black-and-white helmets covering their entire heads. Vulcanus always thought the upside-down 'V' of black paint where their mouths should be made them look like they were frowning.

Given the circumstances, this was not a good thing for the pair, since Vulcanus was not in the best of moods. He would kill them, of course, but not before giving the brain-dead doubles a chance to explain themselves. After all, it wasn't every day his own troops mistook him for a Jedi.

For a comical moment, both troopers froze, perhaps sensing they'd made a mistake. Their orders were to kill all Jedi on sight. That was part of Order 66, an order issued directly from their true master. But if the young man standing before them was a Jedi then he certainly didn't dress like his friends. Jedi tended to favor the lighter colors of the spectrum whereas this guy's wardrobe was blacker than a starless night.

And why hadn't he ignited his lightsaber?

It all seemed very un Jedi-ish.

Then again, he wasn't a familiar face and he _had _used the Force to absorb their attack…he must be an enemy.

Their decision final, the clones fired again.

Vulcanus repeated his earlier action, and again the shots were wasted. Bolts of red-hot laser vanished midair.

"What really amazes me, troopers, is that you guys survived so long being so moronic. I mean, I might as well be talking to a pair of second-hand battle droids with motherchip errors." Darth Vulcanus shook his head in pitying disbelief. Apparently, _not _all Jango-Fett clones were created equal. These two must have been overlooked the day the cloners added the intelligence genes to that particular batch. Such a pity.

Ok, not _really_ a pity, since there were literally thousands of guys just like these two idiots running around.

_Then again, _Vulcanus reflected, _this is an alternate universe. These losers must take orders from somebody else otherwise they definitely would have recognized me. So maybe it really isn't their fault. Oh well. Too bad for them._

The Storm Troopers' fingers tightened again on the triggers of their weapons. That was as far as they got before their knees gave out from under them and they collapsed to the floor like they'd been hit over the head with a mallet, gasping for breath. Their blasters flew from their hands and exploded against the wall. Choking violently, they struggled to their knees.

Above them, Vulcanus's right hand was half closed in true Force choke fashion. "Still think I'm a Jedi? " he laughed quietly, drawing his fingers in a little more and tightening his grip.

The troopers wheezed in response.

Vulcanus shook his head and glanced dispassionately up at the ceiling. "Didn't think so." He closed his hand completely, crushing his victims' windpipes. The unfortunate duo went down like they'd been shot. "You guys were lucky," he told their corpses, "If I weren't conserving my Force powers I could have done a lot worse."

Pure tough-guy talk. There was no way he'd waste his stronger attacks on a couple of lickspittles even on a good day. Some guys just weren't worth the effort it took to put them out of their misery.

That settled, the young Sith closed the door with a swift jerk of his hand and turned back around to face the direction he'd originally been facing. A long marble hallway lined on either side with doors stretched out in front of him. Since the hall was, for all intents and purposes, constructed of rock and marble rather than steel and metal alloys, Vulcanus figured he had to be in some type of building somewhere and not in a ship. _Still doesn't answer where I'm at though. _Then a scarier thought, _Or how I get back! _

For the first time since arriving in this alien universe, Darth Vulcanus winced. Few things scared him more than the idea of being trapped in some weirdo-dimension without a way out. He'd had everything going for him back home. Everything. A nice warship, his very own Death Star, an empire to co-rule, more money than he could spend in ten lifetimes, and a handful of bases set up on a dozen different worlds that trembled at the mere mention of his name. What wasn't to love?

Then he and his father had had to go and mess with that stupid Cindray. The only known crystal in all of creation able to grant its possessors the ability to travel to parallel universes; a crystal of priceless value and unrivaled power.

They'd had to do an awful lot of killing to get it. It was Darth Vader's hope that they could use the Cindray crystal to set the wrong things right in their own universe by skipping to others and recovering that which had been lost. It was all a wonderful idea, but randomly traveling to other universes wasn't all it was cracked up to be. There were so many unknown factors involved that a lot of times you just could not find what you were looking for.

Not counting this one, Vulcanus had already traveled to five other different universes, and not one of them had been very promising. This was the first time he'd lost the Cindray though. Since the crystal's mode of transportation was teleportation, it normally it would appear in his hands with him whenever he made an interuniversal trip — right where he left it.

This time, however, it had not.

_That'll teach me to go grabbing crystals before I read the instruction manuals. _Why had he thought that would be a good idea? Now he was going to have to go find that thing, and he had absolutely _no_ idea where to look.

_It could be anywhere, _his frantic mind raced, _in a locker, stuck in a crack, down a toilet_...

He really hoped it wasn't the latter. Sure, he could use the Force to pull it out, but then he'd still have to touch it to go back home.

Vulcanus shook his head, tried to clear his mind. _Think — if I were a magic crystal thing, where would I be?_

Not in this hallway, that was for sure. It was time to get moving.

With a frustrated sigh, Vulcanus started his walk down the corridor. All around he could hear blasters being fired in other rooms. These sounds were mixed with explosions, loud thuds, and the earsplitting crashes of things he could only guess at getting broken, trampled, crushed, and otherwise destroyed. From somewhere in the distance a woman screamed.

_Not that I care, but I wonder what exactly is going on here? I mean, I'm in the middle of a war zone and I have absolutely no idea what this is all_ _about. It's like…_

_BOOM!_

The hall shook with the tremendous force of the latest explosion. Vulcanus actually lost his balance and had to catch himself against the wall.

_BOOM! BOOM! KaBOOM_!

Three more explosions! The hallway rolled under the punishment.

Acting on the kind of pure instinct that only came with an exceptionally powerful connection to the Force, Vulcanus brought up both hands and was just in time to use it to shield himself from a flying door. While this protected him from a painful impact, it meant he no longer had a good hold on the wall. The ground buckled beneath him and the blond-haired Sith Lord fell on his butt.

"HOLY….is my father on a rampage here? This is ludicrous!"

From somewhere behind the wall, a voice that sounded very much like a Storm Trooper's shouted "Another one down!"

"Yeah, no kidding." Darth Vulcanus muttered, rising to his feet.

He briefly entertained the idea of going after these explosives-happy morons. While they weren't a direct threat, they were a hazard to his health, and quite annoying to boot. However, this thought was quickly dismissed; the Force pulled his attention elsewhere.

Whatever was behind the door at the end of the hall was pulsing with energy, and most of it was negative. Pain. Suffering. Death. Despair. _Especially_ Despair. Not only were lives being extinguished, but hope.

The sensations were not new to Vulcanus. In his own dimension he encountered such emotions daily as he and his father went about their business. These JedI — for he could sense now that that was what they were — were no different.

Yet for some reason he felt compelled to investigate. Call it a natural curiosity. He hadn't seen a Jedi in so long that he couldn't quite remember what they were like. _Besides, _logic pointed out, _the Cindray has as good a chance of being in there as anywhere else. _

With a quick glance behind him to make sure there wasn't anything else he should know about, he darted down the hall, and, reaching the door in a matter of seconds, tried the controls. To his surprise, it slid open with ease. Someone else had gotten here first.

The scene that greeted his eyes inside was that of a terrible tragedy.

Before the attack, it had been an archive library. A very nice archive library. The rectangular room was large and spacious with tons of shelves spanning its length. These shelves contained thousands of tomes of knowledge, most glowing a light blue. Capping the end of each section was the marble bust of some important figure. The center of the room was basically a long slice of walkway with a reasonably-sized white table in the middle for quiet reading and/or studying. There was even an upper floor — boxed in, of course, by a sturdy metal railing.

But that was all how it had looked _before_ the attack.

Now the place was in ruins, with shelves toppled over into one another in places and gashes decorating every conceivable object at random angles. Most of the marble busts were scattered in pieces across the floor and the reading table was shredded in areas by lightsaber.

The most striking details, however, were the bodies. They were everywhere: slumped up against shelves, hanging over the rails, lying on the floor. Some were adults, but most were adolescents. Children, really. The majority were dressed in cream-colored robes or tunics with brown belts designed to hold a lightsaber. All of them appeared to have died from one or two well-placed lightsaber slashes through the chest. The clones were clearly not responsible for this mess.

_So these are Jedi? I had no idea they were so…fragile. _

For a moment, Darth Vulcanus was frozen in the doorway, staring at the carnage laid out before him. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about this.

On one hand, he was a Sith, and Sith were supposed to hate Jedi. All throughout his life, his father had portrayed the Jedi as manipulative, jealous cowards worried only about their own affairs. They were lying backstabbers who only pretended to care about keeping the peace and only helped out when it was in their best interest. Despite the fact that he had only ever encountered one in his life, Vulcanus had been raised to hate the Jedi.

Yet for as much as his father ran them down, there was still a part of him that couldn't help but to wonder if that was really the case. He'd never actually met a real Jedi save for that one time — the few that had managed to survive his father's wrath stayed well out of the Empire's reach — but he had seen evidence to support the idea that these weren't such a bad bunch after all.

Of course, that only made him feel guilty, and like a traitorous hypocrite, because it flew in the face of everything he'd been taught. "_Don't worry about how other people feel",_ his father, Darth Vader, had told him at a very young age, "_they don't worry about how __**you**__ feel. No, all anyone ever cares about is power. You and I have that power, and they can't stand_ _it."_

Vulcanus's eyes swept over the massacre once again, and he couldn't help but to feel a twinge of sadness. This was all so confusing…

"Is…" cough, "…someone there?" a man's voice called out weakly from behind one of the shelves to the right.

"Yes, I'll be right over!" In his rush, Vulcanus nearly tripped over the still form of an older white-haired woman who had probably been the librarian and came uncomfortably close to rapping his knee on a precariously-balanced marble column. Thank goodness for those Sith reflexes.

Leaping a few more dead bodies, he homed in on the source of the words like a heat-seeking missile and turned down an aisle near the middle of the room. Here the air hung heavy with death. Several little padawans lay sprawled at odd angles on the floor, some of them still fiercely clutching the lightsabers they had died with.

Vulcanus did no more than acknowledge their presence.

An older man — he appeared around sixty, maybe — was slumped against the archives at the end of the aisle. Breathing heavy, he held his arm over what had to be a serious injury to his midsection. Blood seeped out from under his hand and stained his formerly cream tunic crimson. He was in pretty bad shape.

Vulcanus was at his side in an instant. What he was going to do he wasn't entirely sure, but he just _had _to see a Jedi up-close and personal. His burning curiosity wouldn't have it any other way.

The older man coughed: a harrowing, sickly sound. His eyelids fluttered open. Steely gray eyes peered out at Vulcanus from behind a few disheveled strands of light gray hair. He had been expecting to see a Council member — maybe Cin or Mace —standing over him, but when he saw the young black-clothed man the Jedi's face took on a tone of confusion.

"Who are you?"

Vulcanus blinked. He didn't know why it surprised him so much, being that it was an entirely reasonable question for the guy to ask, but somehow he hadn't been expecting those words from his first Jedi.

"Me? Well I'm…well uh…" he stuttered, grabbing for an answer. Somehow he doubted '_Darth Vulcanus' _was going to sit well with this guy. It would be rather nice to learn something about Jedi before he died. "Luke." he finished.

It wasn't a lie.

Before he had been christened Darth Vulcanus, that had been his name: Luke Skywalker. Sometimes his father still called him that.

"And you would be?"

"Tray-Zing," the wounded man replied, "Jedi Master."

Vulcanus/Luke nodded like he understood. In truth, he couldn't tell the difference between a Jedi Master and a Jedi Knight or Council member, but whatever. Kneeling down on one knee, he took Tray-Zing's hand in his own and removed it from the injury.

It didn't look good. The guy had been sliced almost in half. It was amazing he'd lasted this long.

"The wound is deep." Vulcanus stated impassively, his expression totally neutral.

Tray-Zing moved his hand back in place in a futile attempt to slow the blood flow. "Yes," he wheezed, his deep voice strained under the intense pain, "I will die. You…" he was rasping now, " you…" he couldn't make the words come out.

Vulcanus waited patiently for him to finish. That the old man would die was certain. Already he could feel his life force starting to ebb away. What rooted him to the spot was the urgency in the his voice. Vulcanus had always been a curious little Sith Lord — a trait which had gotten him into trouble more than once in his childhood.

Tray-Zing took a deep breath and fought off the cold hand of Death yet again. This was more difficult than anything he'd ever done, yet also more important. The entire future of the galaxy lay at stake here. Thus he'd been holding out as long as he could, hoping someone would arrive.

He gazed up at Luke through watery eyes. There was something about this stranger that he didn't feel entirely comfortable with, but he was young and strong and maybe the only hope they had left.

_Here goes. _Quelling his urge to pass out and fade into oblivion, the ailing Jedi forced himself to speak. " The younglings…the man who did this to me will kill them if you don't hurry. Serra and Cin may have kept him back for this long, but there isn't much time. They're…" It was practically a speech for a dying man, and every syllable felt like a noose tightening around his throat, but sadly this important message was interrupted.

There was the metallic 'whoosh' of a door being opened, and Vulcanus's head snapped in the direction. Springing to his feet, he was just in time to greet a trio of Storm Troopers as they spotted him on their run by his aisle.

"Freeze Jedi!" came the sharp bark of the commanding clone as he and his buddies raised their blasters, anticipating an easy kill.

Darth Vulcanus was not in the mood. Rather than waste Tray-Zing's limited time he simply cast both hands out in front of him and electrified his foes with a lethal dose of hopped-up Force lightning.

It was over in about five seconds. Unable to sustain such a powerful voltage coursing through their bodies, the troopers dropped to the floor like rocks. Only the smell of charred flesh told the tale.

"Darksider!" Unfortunately for Vulcanus, the action had not gone unnoticed by Tray-Zing. The Jedi Master's face darkened with his worst fears. _They're everywhere!_

Without so much as batting an eye, Vulcanus spun back around to face the dying man. "Quick, can you tell me where these younglings of yours are?" he asked, choosing purposely choosing to ignore the 'Darksider' tag.

Tray-Zing frowned. "I'll tell you nothing, _Sith!_"

Vulcanus jerked back, surprised. _Boy, for a guy on his deathbed, he sure has a lot of vigor._ The old master had practically spat that last word.

Summoning up his most level voice, Vulcanus tried the rational approach. "Look, as hard as this may be for you to believe, I want to help those younglings. If you can tell me where they are sometime this year, I may be able to reach them before they join the Dead Children's Club."

Tray Zing narrowed his eyes, but the fight was already leaving him. Weakly, he asked, "How do I know I can trust you?"

"You don't," Vulcanus admitted in a rush, "but if what you say is true then the younglings are going to die anyway, if they haven't already. So what have you got to lose by risking me? I might not be a fluffy ball of pure goodness, but I am very powerful. If I can reach these kids in time nobody's going to be able to touch them. That I promise."

Tray-Zing shut his eyes, and for a moment Vulcanus feared he was dead. But no, he was still breathing, however faintly. His life force was slipping away faster now; he probably wouldn't survive the next three minutes.

With a pitiful attempt to sit up straighter, the gray-haired Jedi master tilted his head back, sucked in a deep breath, and spoke as clearly and quickly as he could. " Leave this aisle, turn right, and head straight out the door with the triangle on it. Follow the hall to its end and go out that door. Turn right at the 'T', and follow it all the way down to the end. You'll see another door with a triangle on it — that's the one."

Vulcanus gave his informer a curt nod. "Thank you."

He turned to leave.

"Please….save them…" Tray-Zing's voice was distant now, as if he were speaking from some place far away, "Watch out for…Anakin Skywalker…he's a…traitor."

Having done all he could to keep hope alive, Tray-Zing finally surrendered to the blissful darkness.


	2. Clash Of The Sith

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**Chapter 2  
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Darth Vulcanus felt, more than witnessed, Tray-Zing's death. It was like the flicker of a dying candle finally burning out. Now the Force would carry his essence to…wherever Jedi went when they died. Vulcanus wasn't sure about that. What he was sure of was that he didn't particularly care.

One life, even a Jedi's life, was meaningless in the grand scheme of things. That was one of the very first lessons his father had taught him. You had to look at the bigger picture — how things played out as a whole.

As he raced to follow Tray-Zing's instructions, a flicker of doubt crossed his mind. _Why am I doing this?_

From the bigger-picture standpoint, it didn't make any sense to postpone his search for the Cindray to dash off and save the lives of a group of younglings in a foreign universe he cared nothing about. What difference did it make if these children died or not? It wouldn't affect him one way or the other. He shouldn't care.

He shouldn't care….but he did.

Such a strange situation. Here he was, an extremely powerful Sith Lord who killed dozens of adults on a daily basis — many of which their only sin had been to get in his way — but for some reason he couldn't kill children. He didn't know why.

By all definitions, Darth Vulcanus wasn't a nice guy. Tray-Zing and any other Jedi that may be present had good reason not to trust him. He'd gladly killed adults that were every bit as innocent and defenseless as little children. Peaceful beings that hadn't had a weapon in their hand had died at the blade of his lightsaber. Entire planets had fallen to the tyrannous rule of the Empire: a hundred thousand sentient species forced to live on their knees because of him and his father. Families that had wanted nothing more than to grow and live in peace were forced into slavery, and those who either couldn't pay their debts or were otherwise deemed worthless were killed on the spot. It was typical Sith rule, and Vulcanus relished it. As King of the galaxy, he was free to do as he pleased and kill anybody who so much as looked at him sideways.

Which he did.

A lot.

Mutilate someone for pure meanness?

Sure.

Kill someone's mate for a laugh?

Why not?

Brutally murder someone for accidentally stepping on his foot at a diner?

Justified!

He had absolutely no problem with destroying lives just because he was bored. It was a great way to keep his subjects fearing him, and could actually be fun.

So why was it that he had never been able to harm a child? Why did he in fact feel protective of them? If all lives were meaningless, why did children matter? Why did he _let _them matter? What reason did he have to care about a life that wasn't his own? It flew in the face of everything he'd been taught. He wasn't supposed to save children, he wasn't supposed to _care_.

Yet he did.

The idea of a young child — any young child — being hurt bothered him, and he found himself at a loss to explain why.

__

Maybe I'm only bothered because I'm bothered.

Just what kind of a Sith Lord went about saving younglings?

_Me, obviously. _Vulcanus conceded mentally, quelling his doubts and ignoring the nagging voice telling him that he should just walk away and not waste his time. He'd promised Tray-Zing that he would protect the kids, and that was exactly what he was going to do. The fact that that promise should never have been made and that he had every reason not to honor it was irrelevant.

Vulcanus poured on the speed. Surprisingly, he had very little difficulty finding his way in a place that was as monotone in design and décor as this one. Almost everything was either beige, brown, gray, or some combination of the three, and the doors were exact copies of each other. Apparently, the Jedi, or whoever ran this establishment, wouldn't know style if it walked up and kicked them in the behind.

As he neared his target, he felt a sudden surge in the Force — a swell of potential well beyond that of an ordinary being. _Must be Anakin. What a joke._

Still his worries doubled: not for his own safety, but for the younglings'. Since this was an alternate universe, Vulcanus understood that Anakin Skywalker was merely an alternate version of his father, Darth Vader. Prior to this fine little mess, he and Vader had already used the crystal to travel to a few other universes, and along the way they'd encountered a few of their doppelgangers. All of these doubles had been much weaker than they were. Usually much, MUCH weaker. As his father had put it, "_Apparently having a midi-chlorian count of more than a hundred thousand is a rather rare occurrence."_

Vulcanus himself had slightly less than that; last he'd checked it had been somewhere around ninety thousand, which, if you were going strictly by the numbers, meant that he had roughly ninety percent of his father's overall power. While this didn't make him invincible it did, especially when combined with his skill, mean that it was going to take one heck of a powerful Jedi or Sith to beat him in a battle.

If this Anakin was a typical AU Anakin and had oh, say, a _fifth _of his father's Force power and less than half his skill, then this was going to be a very short fight. If you could even call one person getting every square inch of their butt kicked a fight. Vulcanus's greatest challenge, he knew, wasn't going to be protecting the younglings, but getting there in _time _to protect them. He was fast, but not flash-of-lightning fast.

Heck, he might already be too late. Then he wouldn't have to worry, would he?

_And just while we're on the subject, **what **the_ **_heck_** _were those Jedi Masters thinking hiding in the library and leaving their younglings to fend for themselves? Are they really that stupid?_

Of course, the possibility that the older Jedi might have sent the children away to hide while they died defending them eluded Vulcanus. Galactic kings simply didn't think about things like that.

As he ran he drew his lightsaber and activated it. Banked right at the 'T' in the hall, just as instructed. Almost there…Storm Troopers! A cluster of six stood guard over the console he needed. Huge mistake. The lean Sith slashed through them so quickly they might as well have not even been there. He barely had to slow down at all.

"Master Skywalker?" Those were the first words Darth Vulcanus heard the second the door whooshed open and he set foot into the final hallway that connected the area he'd just been in with the special 'safe' room the younglings occupied.

The voice belonged to a youngling. Vulcanus couldn't see him due to the fact that Anakin's cloak-covered form was taking up almost the entire doorway.

In response to the child's innocent question the Jedi-turned-Sith ignited his lightsaber.

"Sorry but I don't think so." Vulcanus proclaimed coolly, lashing out with his left hand. Grabbing Anakin with the Force, he pulled him backwards and slammed him down against the floor. And he wasn't gentle about it, either. The floor actually vibrated a bit with the impact.

Anakin's yelp of surprise escaped his lips along with most of the air in his lungs. _What in the…_the newly-christened Darth Vader barely had time to form a thought before a flying black form wielding a red lightsaber flashed over his head.

Vulcanus landed on his feet just short of the threshold. The little blond-haired boy standing there froze over with fear at the sight of him.

"Get back! Hide!" Vulcanus barked, sounding far more menacing than he'd intended. He wasn't used to dealing with children or using the softer array of tones in general.

At any rate, his words had the desired effect and the youngling dashed back behind a row of overturned, overstuffed hunter-green chairs where several of his friends waited.

Satisfied that they would be safe until the threat was dealt with, Vulcanus whirled on Dark Anakin. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size? Afraid we might fight back?"

Anakin was back on his feet now, and thoroughly confused. It was one thing to see Jedi he'd never encountered before; in fact, most of the Jedi he'd just killed he either hadn't known at all or hadn't known very well. It was quite another matter to be ground-slammed by what he could only conclude had to be a Jedi in Sith's clothing. The black cape, the red lightsaber — his very first thought, actually, had been that Palpatine had come to check in on him. Who else would dress like that?

Now that he had a better view of this stranger he didn't see how he had ever confused the two. Not only was this guy decades younger than the Senator/Sith Lord, he was infinitely better looking. Appearing around twenty years of age, he was a little smaller than Anakin, both in height and build. Rather than the traditional Jedi garb, a pure black outfit consisting of a long-sleeved shirt, pants, leather boots, and flowing cape graced his lean form. Brownish-blond hair a shade or two darker than Anakin's own and with just the tiniest hint of waviness in it crept past his ears to frame a face with features that were somehow hauntingly familiar. A single tiny, slender scar hung just above the farthest tip of his right eyebrow.

What really grabbed Anakin's attention though wasn't the hair, or the scar that was in the same place as his, but rather the stormy blue eyes that glared at him with the fierce intensity of a dangerous predator put on the defense. That wasn't a typical Jedi glare: there was something about it that was far more sinister.

_This guy looks more Sith than me! _For a fleeting moment, Anakin wondered if perhaps he and Palpatine weren't the only Sith in the galaxy.

The idea died quickly. Readying his lightsaber, the new Sith prepared for the inevitable battle. He didn't answer his foe's question. He didn't need to. He just needed to be fast and efficient, and to contact his master once his task was completed. This strange new Jedi may look like a Sith, but he would fall before him same as all the others.

Taking the initiative, he made the first move and swiped for his opponent's head.

Vulcanus blocked the blow with ease. "Ok, now you're just being rude. I asked you an entirely reasonable question and you didn't even dignify it with an answer. Sheesh, wake up on the wrong side of the table today?"

A few younglings laughed at that. They tried to be quiet about it, of course, but a few muffled chuckles rose up from behind the furniture.

"The Jedi must be purged." Anakin growled, making his feelings on the matter perfectly clear. He stabbed for Vulcanus's heart.

And nearly got his lightsaber knocked out of his hand.

"Purged?" Vulcanus echoed, cocking an eyebrow, "Purged of what? Hatred? Violence? Younglings? You're going to have to be a bit more specific. The word covers a broad range." The whole time he was saying this he was warding off a flurry of fast-paced attacks. "Why don't you just say what you mean and say 'killed'?"

"Fine. Killed. The way you're going to be." Anakin's voice was dangerously calm. He blocked a few blows headed his way and then lunged straight for Vulcanus's chest with his saber, hoping to either make a fatal hit or back his adversary up into the room.

It didn't work. Instead of gaining ground he came frighteningly close to having his head chopped off.

"You're not getting in there." Vulcanus continued in that same unruffled tone, as if reading his mind, "So you might as well forget about it." Now he was certain this Anakin was weak. If he had been fighting his dad he would have already been backed at least halfway into the room by now, and they hadn't even used Force powers yet. And…was that what he thought it was?

Vulcanus's eyes jerked to Anakin's right arm. A sleek black glove tried — and failed — to disguise the fact that it was a mechanical replacement for the real thing, which looked to have been taken off around the elbow.

_Ok, I wonder what_…his gaze traveled up to Anakin's face, where he was surprised to find not one, but _two_ scars decorating his right eye. One of the scars was in the exact same place as his, only it was longer and more noticeable. The other scar was shorter, fainter, and ran for about an inch just under the eye. Curious that the lower scar was out of sync with the upper scar: it rested a fraction of an inch too far to the right. Other than those details….

Vulcanus was surprised. Not tremendously surprised, but a little. He'd seen other Anakins before, but none had bore this strong a resemblance to his own in terms of age, appearance, and style. _Wow, save the arm and scars, he looks exactly like my father!_

The similarities, however, ended there. Not only was this Anakin much weaker than the version that had sired him, he was also either much less skilled or else terribly unlucky. Probably both.

Vulcanus actually felt cheated. He was used to fighting his father in mock-duels; blocking blows like these barely took any effort.

The air buzzed with energy. Lightsaber clashed against lightsaber, and then the action was repeated all over again.

To Anakin's dismay — and astonishment — Vulcanus was very good at deflecting his blows. Two minutes after his first attack, and the former Jedi Knight was starting to get pretty frustrated. No matter how well-aimed or perfectly executed his strikes were, they always came up short of actually doing anything. _He's good…I'm going to have to be a little more creative._

Trying for a more critical attack, Anakin swung high. Blue sizzled on red. Just as he'd predicted, his attack had been countered. Now to add the twist. Instead of drawing away and coming up for another attack the way he had been, this time Anakin pressed his lightsaber harder and harder into the red blade, putting both arms and all of his strength into it. Vulcanus sank under the pressure.

_Hah! Got him! _Anakin's lip curled up in a cocky grin. His foe might be an undeniably skilled duelist, but he wasn't as powerfully built as him and lacked the strength to win a saber-lock.

White-hot blades inched their way closer and closer to the tender flesh of Vulcanus's neck. Push as he might he could not stop their descent.

Then…_Waitaminute. **Why **in the name of all things **sane **am I trying to win a pushing contest against_ _a guy who has a METAL ARM?!_

That wasn't a very smart thing to do.

Vulcanus quickly switched tactics.

Freeing his left hand, he flung it out in front of him and gave Anakin a strong Force shove that knocked him on his butt.

He thought about ending it right there. He certainly could. This Anakin was too weak to defend well against his more powerful attacks. A Jabberwock laser would end this dispute in a heartbeat.

Yet he really didn't want to kill this less powerful version of Darth Vader. For all their differences, Vulcanus loved his father and would hate to see anything really bad happen to him. Even though he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that this Anakin _was not_ his father, it would be hitting too close to home. _But how do I make him leave?_

The answer to that was beautifully simple: show him some serious Force-mojo.

As it turned out, Anakin happened to have the same idea. He wasn't getting anywhere with his lightsaber, so, hopping back to his feet, he tried a little Force lightning courtesy of his flesh-and-blood left hand.

"Take that!" he hissed, eyes glowing a feral yellow and red with rage.

To his complete and utter shock, Vulcanus banished all of his lightning into nothingness with a wave of his hand.

The young Sith Lord grinned. "Ok. Now what?"

Anakin didn't have an answer for that. In the past few hours he'd fought a _lot_ of Jedi, many of them at least at knight level. Of these, he could count on one hand the number that had been a challenge for him: namely Mace Windu, Cin Drallig, and Serra Keto. While those three in particular had been exceptionally good duelists, not one of them came anywhere near this stranger's skill. Certainly none of them had been able to absorb his Force lightning with their _bare hands._

Sidious's new apprentice hesitated, feeling some of his confidence melt away. Maybe he should back out for now. Finish the job later when he was up to full strength and better prepared. _But then the Jedi will be ready for me, and I'll have missed my only chance to take them out in one strike. I'll have failed my new master, Padmé, and our unborn child._

No, he decided, he simply couldn't risk it. There was no turning back now — he had to stay and finish the job. It was the only way to save Padmé's life and restore order to the galaxy. The only way…_Something's out of place here._

The stranger in black wasn't attacking him. Unfortunately, he wasn't moving out of his way either, but given the circumstances it seemed very odd that he should just stand there twirling his oh-so-Sith red lightsaber like a baton. He obviously felt very confident in his abilities, but the relaxed, almost bored expression on his face was downright insulting.

_He thinks this is all a game, does he? I'm really, **really **going to enjoy killing this one. _Anakin tightened his grip on his lightsaber. His lips parted just enough to show his teeth in a very menacing snarl.

Vulcanus shook his head, smiling in a way that could only be described as good-natured. "C'mon, with reflexes like yours, I'd welcome the chance to improve them." Anakin's face flushed with anger, and Vulcanus actually had to cup a hand over his mouth to stop himself from completely cracking up. So hilarious!

" It's not that you…" a blue blade flew at his face, and Vulcanus parried it before continuing. "…don't have _potential_, it's…" He countered another strike aimed for his hand, "…just that you happen…" and one aimed at his chest. "…to be a very poor swordsman. Maybe if you train…" He moved his arm out of the way of Anakin's next slash. " …with your master very hard…" Anakin leapt back and tried to Force choke him. Only a minor annoyance. Vulcanus waved it off. " …each day, eat a healthy diet, and get plenty of exercise and sleep…" Here came the Force lightning again. Just as before, the sizzling bolts vanished before they even got close to him. "…you might…" The other Sith leapt back within range. "…eventually, with a little hard work…" He flicked his wrist and caught Anakin's blade on its next swing. Anakin snarled something best not repeated. "…and dedication, reach the point where…" He swatted the blue blade away from him. "…you can actually break my defenses. Did you know that I barely even have to try to block you? "

Anakin backed off, exhausted and utterly humiliated. This was impossible. Nobody fought that well. _Nobody_. Sure, Jedi were a lot of times able sense incoming attacks and react with lightning-quick reflexes, but this was taking it to the extreme. Whoever this guy was, he seemed almost to be able to read Anakin's mind and know every move he was going to make ten seconds before he made it. No matter what Anakin did, his lightsaber hit nothing but his opponent's blade and bounced off it in such a way that his entire attack schema was thrown off. And the barbed insults this idiot was spewing out certainly weren't helping his concentration. Just his luck to get stuck with a comedian.

_Ok, a traditional lightsaber duel is out here. This guy's got way too much skill. I need to get him off-balance and then come in quick and fierce, before he has time to recover. _False fingers coiling tighter around the handle of his saber, Anakin lunged forward with it, as if to stab his enemy's heart.

Just as predicted, Vulcanus moved to block him.

That was exactly what Anakin was counting on. At the very last possible second he jerked his body back and thrust his good hand forward, unleashing a shockwave of Force energy.

He halfway expected nothing would happen. This guy was so good at, well, _everything_, it would be just like him to find a way to shrug it off the way he had the Force lightning and everything else.

So it was a pleasant surprise when his target lifted up, flew in reverse, and smacked the far wall inside the younglings' room with the back of his head.

A satisfied smile slithered across Anakin's face as his rival dropped to the floor, rapping his forehead sharply against the edge of a table in the process. "Looks like you could stand to learn a few more tricks yourself, _hotshot_." he sneered as he entered the room.


	3. A Fate Averted

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**Chapter 3**

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A throng of younglings poked their heads up from behind the overturned couches and chairs. They were distraught and slightly shaken, but at the sight of Anakin their eyes lit up with hope.

Anakin frowned. He knew what he had to do, but that didn't mean he had to love it. Padmé's life was on the line, and the Jedi were all corrupt anyway. _I'll make it swift._ That same little blond-haired boy — the one who had addressed him earlier — dashed out from hiding and ran straight to him, as if it were the safest thing in the world.

"Master Skywalker!" he exclaimed excitedly, face beaming with joy, "That was awesome! You sure showed him!" Being guiltless and naïve, the boy missed all the signs that he and the others were in grave danger. His gleeful eyes failed to notice Anakin's sour expression, or the way he was preparing his lightsaber for another strike.

_This is for you, Padmé. For all of us. _Doing his best to ignore the youngling's innocent, trusting smile, Anakin positioned his lightsaber and, before his emotions could overcome him, swung the blade down.

His mistake was ignoring Vulcanus.

The galactic king was back up, and the second he saw Anakin's arm twitch he threw a Force shield around the child. There was a loud buzz as the searing blue blade slammed against an invisible barrier a foot over the boy's head. Hard.

"I hate to tell you this, kids, but 'Master Skywalker' isn't your friend. So unless you're morbidly curious as to what the hot end of his lightsaber feels like, probably a good idea to stay away from him." Just in case Blond Boy _was _the morbidly curious type, Vulcanus picked him up with the Force and tossed him gently back behind the couch. The other children instinctively ducked back into hiding. A few hushed whispers could be heard as they made sure their friend was okay.

Anakin whirled on Vulcanus. "You!"

"Yes, me." Vulcanus said hotly. He felt something warm trickling down his face and wiped his hand on it. It came away bloody. _Well_ _how about that? It's been awhile since I've actually bled. _Still, it was only a minor inconvenience. "I'll give you points for the sneaky attack, but I'm afraid it's going to take more than a bump on the head to stop me." To demonstrate, he waved a hand over his face and the blood along with the sharp cut on his forehead instantly vanished. "A lot more."

_What! How did he…_Anakin could barely believe his eyes. Not only had this young upstart managed to get right back up from an attack that should have easily left him unconscious, he had called upon the Force to instantly heal his injuries with just a wave of his hand. It was incredible. _I sensed he was strong with the Force_, _but not __**that **__strong!_

Keeping his focus, Anakin readied his lightsaber and prepared for attack. Icy blue eyes locked onto his foe's. "Nice trick," he admitted grudgingly, "but for all your efforts you haven't been able to kill me yet."

Vulcanus's eye twitched in amusement. "Efforts?" he huffed, "You call what I've been doing _effort_? Well here's a shocker for you, Captain Clueless: I'm not really trying to kill you. If I were _trying_ to kill you, you'd be dead right now."

Anakin narrowed his eyes. "I'm not convinced." No sooner were the words out of his mouth than his left hand shot out — whips of blue-violet Force lightning leaping from his outstretched fingers and snaking over the space between him and Vulcanus.

It was a quick attack. A sneaky attack. And it should have worked.

But it didn't.

Vulcanus had been expecting such a course of action, and, thanks to his razor-sharp focus and extra-strong connection to the Force, he saw Anakin's hand move a full second before it did. Possessing reflexes almost as fast as his adversary's lightning, he held out his palm and absorbed the charge back into the Force.

"You're not convinced?" The AU Sith tilted his head playfully, "Well you've managed to convince me. That you're insane. You keep repeating the same moves over and over and expecting different results."

"Hey!" Anakin bristled at the barbed insult, "That was only the third time I tried that!"

Vulcanus shook his head, smirking. "Yes, and it worked wonders for you the first two times, didn't it?" He spared a glance in the younglings' direction. Gave the few who dared eye-contact a knowing nod. "You see kids? 'Master' Skywalker here is a fine example of how _not _to fight. He couldn't hit me if I just stood here."

If Anakin had been enraged before, he was nothing short of flaming furious now. With a savage growl he threw his lightsaber at Vulcanus, using the Force to guide it to his heart.

Vulcanus moved his hand into the saber's path and slowed its progress. As Anakin watched, his weapon froze midair, flipped around, and flew back at him hot-end first.

"No, that's not going to work either. No offense but, seriously, you need to add some variety. I'm begging you. You look sharp, but you fight like a federation droid." Vulcanus was completely enjoying himself. It was fun to be putting the hurts on his father for a change. Back at home family feuds never went this well. His Anakin was probably the only being in the galaxy that could best him in an all-out duel. Which stood to reason, since he had been — heck, still was — Vulcanus's mentor and master and was slightly stronger than him with the Force.

This Anakin, on the other hand….well…he wasn't exactly trembling in his boots. Maybe he would have been when he was six, but not now.

Just as he'd predicted, Anakin dodged the lightsaber. Let it hit the wall behind him. Called it back to his hand and instantly reactivated it.

Vulcanus looked down briefly to the floor where his own lightsaber rested at the foot of the table. It would be a simple matter to Force pull the weapon back to his hand and re-engage Anakin in swordplay. But there would be no point. Much as he relished beating this inferior version of his almost all-powerful father around, it really was getting to the point where he needed to end this fight and go look for his crystal.

Besides, the longer he fought the more he risked seriously hurting this Anakin: something he really didn't want to do. There was no way this poor guy could know what he was up against. _Time to end this._

Choosing one of his personal favorite attack methods, Vulcanus clenched his right hand semi-shut and gripped Anakin's throat in a terrible Force choke.

At first there was a great deal of resistance — perhaps this Anakin wasn't all that weak after all — but it quickly passed.

Gasping for breath, the cloaked Sith bent over slightly, fighting with all his might to free himself. Vulcanus brought his fingers closer together and now Anakin sank to his knees, dropping his lightsaber.

He couldn't breathe!

It felt like some unseen serpent were wrapping around his neck, crushing his windpipe. In a desperate attempt to save himself he brought his hands to his throat and tried to force it back open.

Slowly — heck _casually _— Vulcanus made his way to the downed Sith. "That enough convincing for you? You're lucky I didn't turn your lightning back on you. I could have, you know." He opened his hand just a little bit. Allowed his victim enough air to formulate a reply.

"Who are you?" Anakin gasped once he was able.

"Name's Darth Vulcanus." The bow that followed was purely for show.

Anakin felt the vice-like grip on his windpipe loosen a tad more. His eyes widened in surprise. "_Darth Vulcanus_! You're a _Sith?_!" _What happened to all this 'there's never more than two' garbage the Council was spewing out? _Palpatine was right: the Jedi had clearly been telling a whole mess of lies.

"Um…yeah." Darth Vulcanus said, as if any idiot should know, "What, the black clothes, red lightsaber, and 'Darth' prefix to my name not good enough hints for you? And I'm a Sith _Lord_, actually. I don't know about here, but where I come from the term 'Sith' by itself usually just refers to some untrained apprentice."

"But…I thought there could never be more than two." Now that he had a little more air, Anakin studied the face of the other Sith in more detail.

Again, he was haunted by the unshakable feeling of familiarity, the feeling that he _knew_ this guy from somewhere, or at least that he _should _know him. It was a very odd feeling to have. Even Vulcanus's expressions reminded him of something he couldn't quite put his finger on — they were familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time. _And he calls himself a Sith __**Lord**__, but he doesn't look old enough to be one. He can't be any older than me._

"Never more than two?" Vulcanus chuckled, "That shows what you know, doesn't it?"

"That's…" Anakin shook his head, less than enamored with the prospect of there being more Sith. His eyes darted to the overturned upholstery and were just in time to see a youngling's head duck back down. "That's impossible. You can't be a Sith. Sith don't protect Jedi!"

"I want you to show me where that's a written law. Besides, these are just children. Maybe you feel threatened by them, but I don't."

Anakin had had enough. Sith or not, this guy was going down.

Ignoring the nagging discomfort of still being mildly choked, he sprung to his feet, calling his lightsaber to his hand. "There is much you fail to understand." he growled as he ignited it and took a swing at his opponent's face.

Vulcanus released his Force chokehold and leapt back, barely avoiding the blue-white tip of the humming saber. _Alright, I've played with him long enough._

From off to the side of the room, two sets of eyes peeked out nervously from behind the cushions of a chair. The younglings were watching intently, perhaps understanding that their fate would be decided by the victor of this battle.

Vulcanus was glad for the attention — it gave him an audience to show off for. "No, I rather think there is much _you_ fail to understand." He twitched his wrist and Anakin's lightsaber jumped right out of his hand. It deactivated on impact with the wall and fell to the floor.

Anakin was about to go after it when Vulcanus curved his fingers to look like claws and swiped the air in front of him.

"Aaah!" the would-be youngling murderer cried out in pain. His head swung violently to the right like he'd been slapped by a very powerful droid, and three fresh gashes resembling claw marks spontaneously appeared on his left cheek.

The blow hurt, but there was no time to dwell on that.

Using the Force, he picked up one of the chairs and flung it at Vulcanus, sending the two younglings that had been hiding behind it dashing for cover.

Vulcanus caught the airborne chair well before it would have hit him and cast it harmlessly aside. "That all you got?" he jeered, "Sheesh, no wonder you lost your arm. What surprises me is that you managed to keep your head."

"Your taunts will get you nowhere." Anakin hissed vehemently.

"Much like your fighting skills." Vulcanus quipped, "Say what you like about me, METAL ARM, at least I'm not missing any body parts." _And neither is __**my**__ Darth Vader, _he added silently, just before deciding that he was most definitely through messing around.

Before Anakin had time to react he Force shoved him to the floor. His foe was just starting to get up when he rushed over and slammed his foot into his midsection, pinning him beneath his boot.

Anakin cried out, but this time it was more from surprise than pain.

Now he was trapped.

Vulcanus lost no time with pleasantries. "Listen, I don't want to kill you, but that doesn't mean I won't. I've been pretty lenient with you so far, but I _can _get vicious. You're just lucky there isn't any lava around for me to show you how I got my Sith name. You're not going to harm these younglings. Put that out of your mind if you want to live to see your next duel. I'm going to let you up now and give you one last chance to escape." True to his word, he lifted his foot off of the fallen Jedi-Sith and took a few paces back. Anakin started to get up. "If, however, you would rather stay and fight, then I only have one question for you…" He twirled his right hand palm-up in front of him and a jet of fire erupted from its center to stand six, eight, twelve inches tall! "fire…" The action was mirrored with his left hand, only instead of flame this time a light, blue-white frosty substance shot out of his open palm to rival the height of the fire, "or ice." He grinned broadly, the sides of his face framed by his powers. "How do you want to be burned?"

That did it right there for Anakin. Much as he loathed the very idea of running away from a fight, there was no way, no _way_ he could hope to come out on top against someone like Darth Vulcanus. Not alone, anyway.

He was aware of his cheek stinging, and rubbed the fingers of his real hand along the lengthy cuts, feeling the sticky warmness of freshly-trickling blood. _Force __**fire**__! Force __**ice**__! How did he_… Anakin swelled with anger. _There's something Palpatine isn't telling me. If Padmé dies because of this…_he let the thought hang.

His new master was going to have some explaining to do, oh yes.

His plans having absolutely nothing to do with getting burned in any way by Darth Vulcanus, Anakin/Darth Vader turned and fled down the hall — but not before giving the other Sith a malicious, molten glare that whispered '_I want you dead.'_

"Come back anytime!" Vulcanus called after him as he formed his fire into a ball and threw it down the hall to hurry him on his way. Anakin dodged in the nick of time and fireball exploded on the wall. "And bring your master so I can have a bit more of a challenge!" The ice-jet in his left hand collapsed into a floating blue-white mist and began to solidify. This, too, was thrown, and the iceball splintered apart midair into razor-sharp shards that stuck into the wood of the doorframe.

Having taken out the trash, so to speak, a triumphant Vulcanus spun around to greet the younglings with a smug smile that was as warm as it was conceited. "And _that_, kids, is how you deal with a wannabe Sith who thinks he's the hottest thing since the Big Bang."


	4. Guardian Sith

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**Chapter 4**

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**

The moment was pregnant with silence.

For a good ten seconds following Anakin's hasty retreat, neither younglings nor Sith said a word. They just stared at one another, each wondering what the other was thinking. It was hard to know what to do or say in this very special circumstance. Sith did not defend Jedi. Such situations were unheard of. No matter how different their thoughts, the same voiceless question was on everyone's mind: what happened from here?

Slowly and cautiously, a few younglings found the courage to emerge from hiding; their wary faces and nervous eyes betrayed their urge to bolt at the faintest hint of danger.

Vulcanus put on the friendliest smile he could muster — one he could only hope wouldn't come across as being sneaky or malicious the way it sometimes did. "C'mon now, you can trust me. Well, more than a lightsaber-wielding maniac at any rate."

A tiny Twi'lek girl approached, her eyes fixed firmly on her rescuer's hands as if she expected them to reach out and throw fire at her. "But you're…you're a Sith."

Vulcanus sighed.

He reached up to rub his temple and half the room jumped. _Boy, nervous bunch._

"Sith _Lord_," he corrected gently, "I'm too powerful and well-skilled to be just a 'Sith'. But don't worry — I'm a _good _Sith Lord." _At least for the time being. Boy, doesn't that sound oxymoronic?_

That seemed to calm the children down some. More than a couple relieved breaths escape into the air. The danger was over.

However, there was still something of a problem.

Now that he had saved them, it occurred to the semi-compassionate Sith Lord that he didn't know what to _do_ with these kids. He didn't fancy the idea of taking them with him to hunt for the Cindray crystal, but if he were to just abandon them now then he may as well have left them to Darth Vader. The place was crawling with Storm Troopers, all of whom were more than capable of killing virtually defenseless younglings. _Way to go, Vulcanus. You saved the little ones from the Big Bad…now what?_

Now _all_ the younglings were out of hiding and arranged in an extremely loose semi-circle around him.

Vulcanus counted twelve: six humans, two Twi'leks, and the other four were all of species he didn't readily recognize. _I knew I spent far too much time in the lairs and onboard my Death Star and not enough time out actually visiting my planets. Maybe if I had then I would know what those four are._

Though he and his father co-ruled their conquests, they'd divided the planets and systems amongst themselves so that some 'belonged' more to one than the other. Vulcanus, for example, was responsible for Naboo. That meant that it was his job to make sure its inhabitants lived according to the Empire's code, collect tribute, and deal with any problems that might arise there. He decided the planet's fate. That didn't, however, prevent Vader from going there anytime he wanted and doing anything he wished. It was just easier to keep track of everything that way.

The little blond-haired boy — the one that had addressed Anakin twice earlier and nearly gotten sliced in half for it — ran to Vulcanus's side. He looked deeply upset. "Darth Vulcanus, Sir, why did Master Skywalker want to kill us? He's a Jedi!"

Vulcanus shook his head and offered the boy what he hoped was a sympathetic look. "'Master' Skywalker has turned to the dark side of the Force. In some ways, he's more Sith than me. While you were all hiding he and his clone flunkies have been destroying this place and killing Jedi on sight. He would have killed all of you, too, if I had let him." He patted the boy on the head — an action which came across as both awkward and reassuring all at once. "Hey, you're a brave one. Standing up to Da…er, Skywalker all by yourself. What's your name?"

The boy's face lit up, brown eyes sparkling with glee at having been formally addressed by the man he now regarded as his hero. "Trael Kitsun. Thank you so much for saving us! I didn't know Master Skywalker could be so mean!"

"Trael, huh?" Vulcanus nodded thoughtfully. "That's a good name. How old are you, Trael?"

"Six."

Vulcanus's smile slipped a little at that. A quick glance around the room revealed to him that none of his twelve new charges looked much older than that. Some appeared even younger. They were all dressed up Jedi-style in the cream-colored outfits, but only two of them carried a lightsaber: the Twi'lek girl that had spoken earlier and a kid that he thought looked something like an odd cross between a Gungan, a human, and a cactus.

_Ooookay._

While he was preoccupied trying to figure out what gender it was, a human girl with thick blonde curls approached him from the side. "Darth Vulcanus, Sir, Nuru and Jenn-Fa are hurt."

"Where are they?"

"Over there." The girl turned and pointed to a little red-headed girl who looked around five and a boy with short brown hair that looked maybe Trael's age. The little girl was clutching an injury on her arm that was bleeding and the boy had his hand over his left side. Both were in extreme discomfort, though they were trying to be brave about it. Vulcanus saw the salty trials of dried tears running down their little cheeks.

"Who's hurt worse?"

"Jenn-Fa, I think. He was hit by blaster fire on the way here."

Vulcanus approached the child, who was half-sitting half-slumped against the side of a chair.

Jenn-Fa looked up at him with inquisitive brown eyes. He wasn't scared, really. Just confused. And cautious.

Vulcanus had to admire his bravery. These children were tougher than most. "Alright. Let's see your injury."

Jenn-Fa moved his arm away from his side, and Vulcanus knelt down on one knee to get a better look. Sure enough, clothing and flesh alike were charred by a straight, clean cut about three inches long. As far as wounds went it wasn't that serious — the blaster-bolt had just barely grazed him — but it was bleeding pretty fervently and the tissue surrounding it was red and hot to the touch. Vulcanus moved his hand over it, and Jenn-Fa automatically winced in discomfort.

"Easy there." the Sith Lord soothed in as gentle a voice as he knew how, "Unfortunately my Force heal only works on me, so I can't just wave my hand and make that disappear. But I can give you a quick fix until we find some medical supplies."

Jenn-Fa nodded, a tiny smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. "Thank you. I'd like that."

Vulcanus felt all eyes on him, as if he were a wise old medicine man about to perform a miracle. He wasn't, naturally, but it made him feel all special inside just the same.

Gingerly, he pushed the bloodied and torn strips of cloth away from Jenn-Fa's wound and then held them back with his left hand. With his right, he pointed just two fingers over the center of the gash. "Okay, this might sting a little at first."

Twin streams of frosty ice-substance each as wide around as a piece of yarn shot from Vulcanus's fingertips, freezing blood and tissue solid on impact.

As the rest of the younglings watched in amazement, their rescuer swept his fingers back and forth over their friend's wound, literally freezing it over with a layer of fine whitish-blue frost.

The whole process took only four seconds.

When he was done, Vulcanus cut his Force ice and retracted his hand to admire his handiwork. "There we go. We can't have you this way for long or you'll get frostbite, but at least you won't bleed to death and that should have helped some with the pain. How do you feel?"

Jenn-Fa shivered. "Cold. But it doesn't hurt anymore."

"I figured the ice might numb the pain." Vulcanus gave the wounded kid a small smile. "Just take it easy with that, kay?"

Jenn-Fa nodded.

"Nuru's up next." He made eye-contact with the little redhead, and she came up to him, still covering her left arm. _She looks kinda familiar…red hair, green eyes…_where had he seen that before?

Oh yes, now he remembered.

"You remind me of that Mara-something woman I killed." he said absently, momentarily forgetting that he was surrounded by young and impressionable children who might not find that statement very comforting.

"K-killed?" Nuru trembled a bit, face paling slightly. Maybe this wasn't such a nice Sith after all.

"Hey, she had it coming. Woman thought she could just drop in on my Death Star like she owned it and sabotage all my shields and weaponry. I was going to kill her right then, but for some strange reason which I shall never fully understand I let her talk me out of it." Vulcanus paused, remembering the way that Mara-something had _looked_ at him. Those quivering lips, those seductive eyes. The sly smile that said '_Take me baby, I'm yours!'_ The mere memory of that horrible nightmare would forever haunt his sanity. He cocked his head to one side, gazed up reflectively at the ceiling. "I think she may have even had a crush on me. But then she tried to steal my Blade Ship, and after that I'd had enough." He shook his head slowly, wondering to this day just what kind of a deranged nutjob that woman had been to think she would be able to get away with that. _Nobody_ messed with his ships.

Having been momentarily distracted, he turned his attention back on Nuru. "It's alright," he assured her, "I'm not going to kill you. Here…let's have a look at that arm."

Her trust rekindled, Nuru let her hand slip away from her injury and held her arm out as still as possible for Vulcanus's examination.

"Well that's no good." the dark lord remarked once he saw the gore-encrusted hole just beneath her right elbow where a slender splinter of blackened wood protruded. It looked like Nuru had been the victim of a sudden explosion, in which case she was lucky to have gotten off with only a minor injury.

"Can you fix it?" she asked, hopeful.

"Maybe not _fix_ fix, but I can help a little." Vulcanus held his right hand near the wound, but off to the side a little. The embedded wood splinters rapidly dislodged themselves from the child's flesh and flew out as forcefully as they had gone in.

Nuru let out a sharp yelp of surprise. She started to jerk her arm away, but Vulcanus stopped her.

"Hold on." he warned as he aimed his pointer-finger at the red-rimmed hole, "This is going to hurt, but it's necessary to prevent infection."

Nuru squeezed her eyes shut, mentally blocking the pain even before it happened. Master Yoda had taught her the trick not long ago, and she was glad she had not forgotten it. A small jet of flame leapt out of Vulcanus's finger and scorched the inside of her wound. This time he waited only two seconds before cutting his power.

His aim had been perfect, as usual. Only the hole and a tiny area of skin around it had been affected and nothing else.

Nuru flinched in discomfort. "It still hurts."

Vulcanus drew his hand away with a disheartened sigh. "I know, but unless you want me to risk hurting you even worse it's the best I can do. Most of my powers are for killing, not healing." His words came out a little colder than he would've liked, but he was unused to dealing with children. In fact, this was the longest time he'd spent around a group of kids since before he'd stopped living with the Lars. _Ok. So I'm not going to win the 'Nanny Of The Year' award. At least I saved them from an early death. _"Is anyone else hurt?" he asked, rising to his full height.

A few younglings shook their heads. "No. Everyone else is fine." Trael verified, "But the clones have overrun the temple! What are we going to do?"

Vulcanus blinked. "Temple? We're in some sort of a temple?"

"The Jedi Temple," a dark-skinned boy standing at the side of Jenn-Fa supplied, "on Coruscant."

"Coruscant? That's the name of this planet, right?" The name was unfamiliar to Vulcanus.

The younglings gathered around him all gave him a look which suggested that maybe they thought he'd bumped his head a little too hard on the table during that fight with Anakin.

The dark-skinned boy nodded. "Yes."

Vulcanus rubbed a hand over his face and groaned inwardly. _Coruscant? I wonder if that's that planet Father destroyed a few years back?_

Hard telling. Ever since the completion of the Death Stars a couple years ago Darth Vader — the one who _wasn't _missing any limbs — had been having a field day destroying planets, many of which had been inhabited. So it wasn't inconceivable to think that maybe Coruscant had been one of the unlucky ones.

"You'll have to excuse me," Vulcanus apologized a bit sheepishly, "I'm not from around here." _Really not from around here._

Another explosion rocked the temple, causing the floor to tremble and shake. Vulcanus kept his balance, but a couple of unprepared younglings went down on their backsides.

"Darth Vulcanus, what are we going to do? Our masters are out there!" a creature with reptilian skin the color of warm fudge exclaimed.

Vulcanus thought it sounded like a female, but he couldn't be sure. He really was terrible with alien species.

"I don't mean to sound cruel, but the fact that that Sith-wannabe was able to get to you and no-one has come to check on you yet means they're probably all dead. I came across quite a few dead Jedi in the library, and unless those brainless Storm Troopers have suddenly taken to using lightsabers, it means they were killed by our 'friend' Anakin Skywalker." He'd been about to call him 'Darth Vader' when it occurred to him that maybe he didn't go by that particular Sith name in this reality. No sense in confusing the poor kids even more. _Still, the kid has a point. What __**are**__ we going to do?_

The temple was falling down all around them, there were a ton of idiot Storm Troopers running around, and he was not, repeat, NOT going to leave without his crystal. Oh, and he had a troop of defenseless younglings to protect.

So what did one do in this situation?

"Alright," Vulcanus told the group, "I have a plan. We're going to march right on out of this room and find my crystal. It's about the size of my fist…" he made his hand into one for visual aid, "…and glows a soft pink. It's very, _very_ important I find this crystal before anyone else does. Bad things will happen if some moron gets to it first, things too horrible to mention. So the moment any of you spots it, let me know right away. Any questions?"

"Yeah," the Twi'lek girl with the lightsaber chimed, "what about the Storm Troopers? There has to be a hundred of them!"

Vulcanus let out a quick chuckle at that. "I don't care if there are a thousand Storm Troopers. I'll kill them all. You guys all saw what I did to Anakin, right? I wasn't even using my stronger attacks. I am extremely powerful. So don't worry. As long as you stay by me, nothing can harm you."

"What about Master Skywalker?" Jenn-Fa ventured.

Vulcanus extended his hands and called both his and Anakin's sabers to him. The metal handles slapped neatly into his palms. "After the way I just trounced him, I really don't think Anakin would be stupid enough to pick another fight with me. At least not alone. If he does, I'll deal with him. After we find my crystal I'll get you all out of here and we'll find someplace safe. There has to be some adult Jedi out there _somewhere_." The last he was less sure about, but for better or for worse he would at least make sure the younglings had a safe place to stay before he hopped dimensions and returned to where he belonged. This was not a fun universe to be in. Everyone was so weak, and he didn't even have his father with him to cheer him up.

Which was, now that he thought about it, a blessing, since his Anakin wasn't any more fond of younglings than this universe's had been and would be a lot harder to beat in a fight. Emphasis on _lot_.

Trael awarded his hero a stereotypically cute boyish smile. "I like this plan."

"Figured you might." Vulcanus said in that same good-natured tone, "Here." He handed the boy the blue lightsaber. "Anakin forget his lightsaber. Now it's yours."

Trael's whole face lit up, until he was practically radiating with joy. "Wow! No, better than that." He hugged the very weapon that had almost killed him tightly against his chest, barely able to believe his luck. "Oh thank you! But…" His joy faded, and his voice took on a tone of genuine concern, "Won't you be needing it?"

"Nah." Vulcanus replied with a friendly wink, "_Real_ Sith use only one lightsaber. Besides, it's the wrong color."

Trael's smile returned with a vengeance. Taking the gray-and-black handle up in one hand, he quickly activated it and swung the fresh blue blade around wildly in the air. "Heh, well mean old Master Skywalker better not come back, because if he does I'll chop off his other arm and knock him through a window." He sliced the air in front of him, and imitated a Force push. "SPLAT!"

_Well how about that? Kid's got spirit! _Vulcanus laughed. "Eh, don't be too hard on him," he joked, playing along, "after all, he is a pretty pathetic excuse for a Sith. Couldn't even keep all his limbs. Now, let's get out of this womprat trap, shall we? " He gave the younglings a stern nod before heading out the door. "And remember kids, stay right with me. As long as you do that you'll be safe, but if you go wandering off on your own for whatever reason I won't be there to help you if you happen to run into any trouble. Y'know, just something to think about before you go running off after candy or…whatever."

"Yes Darth Vulcanus." several small voices agreed in unison.

Vulcanus couldn't help but to smile. _So cute! _

He didn't know why, but he felt a sort of inexplicable joy from helping these younglings. Protecting them made him happy — even happier than he was when he made a new conquest. It made him feel all important; like he was really achieving something worthwhile. Such a strange sensation.

Looking out for others — who knew it could be this much fun?

_It's like destroying a rebel army, only better. _Better because he had someone to impress, someone to look up to him. Several someones, actually. _Dad can go jump in the lava. I don't think younglings are that bad._

Trael deactivated his new lightsaber and followed closely behind Vulcanus's flailing cape. The passageway was narrow, so he and the other younglings had to squeeze almost single-file behind their Sith protector. The acrid smell of singed and burning flesh mingled with the scent of heavy explosives to perfume the air with a nauseous, unpleasant odor. Black smoke billowed out of a generous hole in the wall where a door had once stood.

Vulcanus paused briefly and tried to get a good look into the demolished room. All he got for his efforts were watery eyes and a breath of thick, choking smoke. "Okay…" Cough, "I really…" cough cough, "hope it's not in there. C'mon!" He sprinted the rest of the way past the door only to discover that the entire hallway was filling quickly with smoke, making it increasingly difficult to see and breathe.

_And I can't remember how to get back to the library…which door was that again? Right or left?_

Did it matter?

No.

"This way. To your left." Vulcanus instructed his coughing dependants. When the panel to the right refused to open the door in front of him, he simply fried its circuits with a healthy dose of Force lightning.

That did the trick.

Inside the room a trio of Storm Troopers spun around to deal with this new threat. "Die Jedi!" They raised their blasters, took aim, and…

"I am _not_ a Jedi!" Vulcanus spat irritably, right before flicking both palms forward and electrifying the entire cluster.

It was the lazy way out. If he weren't trying to conserve his Force energies he might have opted to do something more inventive, something to _really _impress his young charges. But he was no fool. Anakin was liable to return in the near future with his master, and while this thought didn't particularly worry him it would be nice to be at full strength in the unlikely event the duo sprang any surprises.

The troopers dropped to the floor, dead.

Vulcanus went over to the nearest one and kicked him in the side. "I guess they were just _shocked _to see us." he joked, but his chuckle was short-lived because that was not the way he felt.

If he didn't get to the Cindray before someone else did, he could very well end up stranded in this universe. That would not be so funny.

The rest of the younglings poured in from behind him, still coughing a bit from their trip through Smoke Hall. Trael was the first at his side.

"Wow, you have Force _lightning _too?" he marveled, seemingly unbothered by the fact that there were now three dead guys in front of him.

"Of course." Vulcanus answered proudly, "What, you didn't think Anakin was the only one who could do that, did you? Most Sith can use Force lightning. Well, at least the ones I've known, anyway."

"Is it hard to do?"

"Not for me, but then I've got a midi-chlorian count that would make you sick. I've been able to do it since I was eight. Of course, it wasn't as _strong _then as it is now, but I could kill with it by the time I was ten."

The little reptilian creature with the brown scales and bulging black eyes decided to add its own take on the matter. "But Master Windu says Force lightning is bad."

Vulcanus cocked an eyebrow at the thing. He still did not know if it was male or female. "Bad? Only if you're the one getting hit with it." He let his eyes wander around the area, taking in every significant detail.

It was a medium-sized room, oval in shape, and in better condition than most of the rest of temple. The wall was solid white marble and the floor was covered with a light tan carpet. Save a few simple chairs lining the wall, the space was devoid of furniture, life, and everything useful. Two undetonated bombs clung to the far wall. Why anyone would want to blow up a room this insipid was beyond the blue-eyed Sith, but they were there nonetheless.

"Alright," Vulcanus said with a note of disbelief, "I've heard of sitting rooms before, but this is a bit extreme."

"It's not a sitting room, Darth Vulcanus Sir." Nuru gently corrected, "It's a meditation room. Jedi come here to relax and meditate without being disturbed." She touched the wound on her arm lightly and recoiled in pain. It still hurt. Not as much as before, but enough to be a nuisance. She wished she had Vulcanus's healing abilities.

"_Meditation_?" Vulcanus wrinkled his nose in distaste and slowly shook his head. Maybe these Jedi really were the sissy wimps his father made them out to be. "Meditation is for old-timers and babies. Channeling your anger and hatred, now _that_ is a _pastime_." Before anyone could reply, he turned and headed back out the hallway. "Come on then. My crystal isn't in there."


	5. Finders Not Always Keepers

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**Chapter 5**

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The younglings had no choice but to follow their new guardian back out into suffocating smoke. Thankfully they didn't have long to wait for him to find the door he'd initially came through and enter into a fresh, breathing-friendly hall.

Unfortunately for them, a gang of Storm Troopers chose the exact moment Vulcanus was in front of their door to explode out of it.

The startled Sith Lord instinctively balked, accidentally bowling Trael and Nuru over in the process.

These Storm Troopers were not your garden variety: they had fancy armor, and they weren't afraid to wear it. Here were the heavy artillery — the real firepower of the clone army. They'd been bred for only one purpose, and it wasn't to run a petting zoo. When they saw Vulcanus standing between them and a bunch of helpless Jedi younglings, they did just as they'd been instructed, courtesy of Order 66.

"Die Jedi filth!" They leveled their blasters and opened fire.

Quick as these clone elites were on the draw, they were not quick enough. Darth Vulcanus met every bolt with his lightsaber and deflected them back upon their senders.

"Arrgh!" The first trooper screamed when the two shots he'd fired came back to strike him in the shoulder and chest.

"Arrgh!" one of his buddies agreed, taking a shot to the side of the head. They didn't have a chance to recover before Vulcanus lunged at them, lightsaber at the ready.

"Gees, what is it about me that just _screams _Jedi? Is it the black clothes? The flowing cape? Or maybe the red lightsaber?" His first slash took off the lead trooper's right arm. The trooper howled. "You know, for being living, breathing creatures, you guys are even lamer than those old battle droids the federation used to use. '_Die Jedi filth_'? Allow me to let you in on a little secret: that is not a good battle-cry. It isn't bold and it isn't clever. All it does it make you sound like a bunch of brain-dead Gungans trying to look tough."

_Slash._

Lead trooper was minus his head. Vulcanus sliced his partner down the middle before gracefully turning his laser-sword into a clean-cut arc that decapitated the imbecile who tried to rush through the door.

The fourth Storm Trooper thought he'd play it smart and hung back. Raising his blaster, he took careful aim at the Sith Lord's face, targeting the area right between those icy cool eyes.

"Freeze!" he barked in his most commanding voice.

Vulcanus was tempted to reply '_If you insist' _and blow this joker clear into next year with a blast of ice colder than Hoth. If he weren't preparing for a possible showdown with Anakin and his master, he would have. But he was, and why waste perfectly good Force ice when a lightsaber would suffice?

In a move too swift for Mr. Freeze's eyes to follow, Vulcanus drew his arm back and sent his deadly crimson blade flying with a flick of his wrist. The last number of the quartet didn't even get the chance to pull off one final shot before the tip of the weapon pierced his heart.

For a moment he just stood there, as if paralyzed.

Then he started to fall, and Vulcanus Force pulled his lightsaber back to his hand. "I don't know why they ever think that will work. Sure I'm going to freeze. Idiot. Rather than clones, I feel like I'm under attack of the clowns. At least they're keeping me amused." He deactivated his lightsaber. Slid it back onto place on his belt.

While some Jedi — and Sith wannabes — attempted to keep their lightsabers hidden until circumstances called, Darth Vulcanus took no such precautions. He liked keeping his special sword out in plain view. Reveled in the fear it sparked in the eyes of others. Relished the sweaty palms and hushed whispers it tended to invoke whenever he walked into a bar or other public gathering. For those fortunate enough not to have seen his Force powers in action, it was a silent warning. Lesser beings might not wish to call attention to themselves, but back home Vulcanus and Vader had no real enemies dangerous enough to be considered a threat and so had little to fear from strutting their stuff.

_What do we have here? _Vulcanus studied the new room with mild interest. There were a few chairs and a few holograph tables sitting around, but other than that the area appeared to be mostly empty. A gaping hole in the wall to the left looked more promising. A soft yellowish glow radiated from within. Without a word to the flock of younglings assembled behind him, Vulcanus started for this hole.

_Wow, I'm glad he's on our side. _Trael thought as he and his friends stepped over the still forms lying on the floor. It had been a massacre — short and brutal. Even the clone army's best were no match for the powerful Sith Lord now watching over them. For the first time since the attack, things were starting to look up. Sure, there were still a ton of clones running around, but as long as he and the others stayed with Darth Vulcanus they were invincible.

"Darth Vulcanus," Trael beamed excitedly, bouncing along closely behind his new friend, "That was great! I mean, what you did back there. How old were you when you got your first lightsaber?"

"Six." Vulcanus replied without glancing back, "Gift from my father. He taught me everything I know about fighting, both with a lightsaber and the Force."

"Wow!" Trael's face shone with admiration. He'd never met anyone as cool as Darth Vulcanus.

Well, Master Yoda came close, and Master Drallig could be funny at times, but what Trael really liked about Vulcanus was the fact that nothing ever really seemed to bother him. He'd creamed Master Skywalker — one of the most powerful Jedi in the Order — and then went on to joke about Storm Troopers without breaking a sweat. He was calm, confident, and completely without fear. The way Jedi were supposed to be. The way he himself hoped to one day be.

Yep, no matter how you looked at it, Darth Vulcanus was the perfect Jedi. Only he was a Sith.

_Still, I wonder if they'd let him train me? _It didn't hurt to hope. Sith were despised for their selfishness, ferocity, and cruelty. They were the age-old enemies of the Jedi, and regarded by most to be twisted and evil. But the way Trael saw it, if Vulcanus had enough good in him to rescue him and the others how bad could he be?

It was all so confusing.

From the day they'd first entered the Order, he and the other younglings had always understood that the Jedi were the good guys and the Sith were the bad guys. Well, on the rare occasions that someone _mentioned _the Sith — they were usually a taboo subject in the Jedi Temple. Yet today he and the others had been attacked by a Jedi and saved by a Sith. That was pretty contradictory. His head hurt from trying to make sense of it all. The only thing he was sure of right now was that Darth Vulcanus had saved his life and he was going to do whatever it took to win the chance to be his apprentice.

Vulcanus paused at the end of the new corridor. For all intents and purposes, he hand absolutely no idea where he was or where he was going. He felt like a clueless _kayad_ wandering around a _thitachi_ maze, and to make matters worse there was still the ugly possibility that some nitwit had gotten to his crystal first.

That rock could be anywhere. _Anywhere._

Shutting his eyes, he inhaled deeply and tried to clear his mind. Envision the Cindray. Picture it as clearly as if he were holding it — the soft pink glow, the perfectly geometrical edges, the weight of it in his hand…something tugged on his cape.

Startled, Vulcanus's eyes flew open. He whirled around, ready to kill if need be.

The Twi'lek girl holding the edge of his cape dropped it and offered him and apologetic look. "Sorry."

"That's alright. Just…be careful, okay? I was ready to attack you."

The girl nodded and took a step back to give him more room. In doing so she nearly bumped into Trael, who sidestepped and gave her a funny look.

The rest of the younglings pushed up as close as they comfortably could to their strange new protector. None of them were saying it but they were all hoping to see a familiar face soon. Vulcanus had said that the other Jedi were all probably dead, but their hopes refused to die. One of the very first lessons Master Yoda had taught them was to always think positively and never dwell on the negative. It was this optimistic thinking that buoyed their hopes now, giving them a light in the dark and making things a little less scary.

Vulcanus couldn't read their thoughts, but he could see the twinkle of hope in their eyes and read the faith on each young face.

Again, he found himself admiring their courage. They may be small and defenseless, but these kiddos had spirit. No wonder the adult Jedi had such a reputation for being fearless, determined, level-headed warriors. The only things they lacked, actually, were power and ferocity: the very things which had allowed him and his father to defeat them and conquer the galaxy.

Or, more accurately, for his father to defeat them.

His whole life prior to these past few months Vulcanus had only ever seen a Jedi once, and being only eight years old at the time he certainly hadn't fought him.

A loud crash drew the Skywalker's attention to a door to the left. Something was definitely going on in there.

Without a second thought he raced to the panel, pressed the button, and dashed in — drawing his lightsaber even before the door had finished opening.

He'd been expecting to find a couple of clones, but instead found a mostly destroyed circular room lined with lots of broken pillars, gigantic bronze-colored statues that were either fractured or missing parts, racks of training orbs, and a large broken window at the back. What really grabbed Vulcanus's eye, however wasn't the broken monoliths or the severe beating the room had taken, but a pair of legs sticking out from under a massive chunk of pillar near the center of the room. Whoever that was they were most definitely dead, but his curiosity got the better of him.

Reaching out with the Force, Vulcanus lifted the heavy column of rock up into the air and hurled it out the already-broken window. The few shards of glass that that still managed to cling to the frame shattered on impact, creating a tremendous racket. Then he rushed over and knelt by the victim's side, putting his lightsaber away as he went.

The body was that of a young female who looked to be in her late teens or early twenties. Her slender form was dressed in an odd combination of a washed mauve skirt complete with belt and purple strappings. Just under all this was a tannish-beige tights-like one-piece that extended form her neck to her toes. She wore reddish-brown boots, a reddish-brown bra-piece, and long gloves that came all the way down to cover half her hands — also reddish-brown. Her long, glossy-black hair was done up in two braids at either side of her head. She was laying flat on her stomach with her face turned to one side and her arms and legs all sprawled out at unnatural angles. One hand still clutched the hilt of a lightsaber. A pool of blood had already formed beneath her mouth and nose. It was still fresh, meaning she had been killed very recently.

The younglings had been hot on Vulcanus's heels, and quickly formed a sad little circle around Sith and Jedi.

"It's Miss Serra Keto!" the girl Vulcanus had mentally tagged 'Brown Hair' exclaimed, an expression of pure horror marring her delicate features. "Is she…"

"Dead?" Vulcanus finished without much emotion, "Definitely. Crushed to death. And since I'd be willing to bet she didn't just stand around waiting for something to fall on her, it means that _somebody _— a.k.a. Anakin — swatted her like a bug with that piece of pillar I just threw out the window."

Gingerly, almost lovingly, he turned the body over onto its back. Serra's face was caked in blood, but even so any moron could see that she had been a very attractive woman.

Vulcanus shook his head. "A shame, really. She was pretty."

Nuru almost choked on her tears. "I was to be her padawan."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Vulcanus said with a genuine sympathy. He really wished he were better at these kinds of things. Offering someone a kind word to help them feel better was not something he did on a regular basis. Generally when he came into contact with other sentient beings it was usually to either terrorize them or boss them around. Oftentimes both. So there weren't too many people who got to see his softer side. Heck, there weren't too many people he gave a flying womprat's rear about.

"This is awful," Jenn-Fa spoke up. Voice quavering, his expression was akin to that of a wounded animal. "I can't believe Master Skywalker would do something like this."

"Poor Serra." Brown Hair took the dead woman's hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. "She was so good to us."

"Yeah, well sometimes bad things happen to good people." Vulcanus stated dryly. _And who would know better than me? _He left that thought behind. _Okay, focus here, Luke. You have to find your crystal, and then you have to find an adult Jedi who isn't dead or mortally wounded to pawn these kiddies off on. Doesn't necessarily have to be in that order. And…I've been trying to do this for the past twenty minutes without much success._

But what could he do other than search and hope he found what he was looking for? Strong as he was with the Force, his abilities did not include Force radar and his ESP had its limits. He could sometimes get a strong hunch about things, see maybe a second or two into the future, and sense both danger and the presence of others up to a planet away, but he couldn't just snap his fingers and automatically know the exact location of whatever struck his fancy. That would be a pretty neat power to have though.

Well, as regrettable as it was that he had yet to meet an adult Jedi that wasn't about ready to join the ranks of the dead, he wasn't getting anything done by just sitting there.

Standing back up, he was just about ready to suggest that he and the younglings comb through the debris in this room on the bid that they might find a pretty little pink crystal when a loud yell made him jump.

"Secure the area!" The gruff voice sounded like it belonged to a Storm Trooper and originated from somewhere just out the window.

"What the..?" Vulcanus lost no time in getting to that window and having a , the warm midday sun beat down on a vast landing platform more than thirty feet below. On this platform were two transport ships out of which a multitude of Storm Troopers were spilling.

One of the troopers stood apart from the rest. His run-of-the-mill white outfit was streaked with red instead of black, and he seemed to be the commander of the unit. All of the other troopers lined up in perfect horizontal rows in front of him and stood attention. Vulcanus guessed there were anywhere from 100 to 150 of them in total.

"Oh great, they sent the cavalry." He groaned, "That's going to make…" he stopped mid-sentence.

One of the generic troopers approached his captain and handed him something. Vulcanus's eyes ticked to the lead trooper's hands.

Was it just him, or was that a soft pink glow radiating from the guy's gloved fingers?

"Hey! That walking corpse has my crystal!"

Now the two troopers were conversing. Vulcanus couldn't make out what they were saying, but it didn't matter. His right hand began to heat up and glow an electric violet-pink.

He was going to do it. He was going to Jabberwock the entire congregation. While he really didn't want to exert himself too much in case a certain pair of Sith arrived, he simply couldn't resist the chance to take out scores of annoying pinheads in one swipe. Besides, his powers would build back up eventually.

"Darth Vulcanus, Sir, what are you doing?" Jenn-Fa asked excitedly.

The younglings.

Right.

Vulcanus hadn't even noticed them coming up behind him. Now he was aware of a dozen sets of eyes watching him.

"Shh. You'll see." He concentrated all his Force energies into his right hand; the longer he took to charge up, the more devastating the laser would be.

As one, the troopers turned toward the temple's entrance. True to their name, they were going to storm the place. Or so they thought.

A violent flare flickered within Vulcanus's eye. "Sorry guys," he called out the window in as loud a voice as he could muster, "but we already have enough party crashers bringing this place down."

The troopers' heads jerked up, searching for the source of this new voice.

Vulcanus released his power. A searing lance of energy as brilliant and intense as a lightsaber erupted out of his palm and shot to the ground below with the speed of greased lightning.

The troopers, genetically engineered to be bold — or, in this case, stupid — raised their blasters to take aim.

They were way too slow.

Beginning at the far left, it took Vulcanus only a few seconds to run his Jabberwock laser in a smart zig-zag pattern through every man there save the captain, the searing lance cutting all it touched in half and scarring the landing platform with a solid dark line.

Having taken care of the peanut gallery, Vulcanus turned his sights on the two transport ships parked nearby. Whether or not anyone was still onboard he didn't know or care. Keeping his laser steady, he dragged it up and through both ships, lancing the engines. Then he ceased his beam and stood back to watch.

The resulting fireball explosion all but engulfed the platform. The floor shook and the sky reverberated with a thunderous roar, like that of a hundred spacecraft all taking off at once. Flaming pieces of twisted debris exploded through the air in all directions as bright crimson flames climbed high, choking the atmosphere with a thick black smoke.

The clone captain had already ducked behind the remains of the pillar Vulcanus had thrown out the window earlier and went flat on the ground, shielding both himself and the Cindray from the forceful blast. A smart move, but not one that would save his skin.

Vulcanus was just about to deal with the troublesome thief when amazed gasps and an excited yelp broke his concentration.

"Whoa…oh _wow_! How did you _do_ that?!" The overly excited, awe-struck voice belonged to Trael, who was practically bouncing at Vulcanus's side.

"The Force," Vulcanus explained without looking back. Below, the clone captain was just starting to get back up. "I'd tell you more, but I really need to take care of this. Stay here. I'll be back in a sec."

The second the words were out his mouth Vulcanus was out the window. The thirty-foot or so drop to the ground didn't bother him: he merely absorbed the bulk of the impact of landing into the Force rather than his feet. Now he stood at one end of the pillar. "Going somewhere?"

The leader of the clone battalion backed away, but not in a hurried manner. "Who are you, stranger?" he spat, his voice sharp and icy. He clutched the Cindray crystal tighter in his hands, and only then did he realize he'd dropped his blaster when he'd dived for cover. How unfortunate.

"Me?" Vulcanus's face split with a very unsettling, very evil smirk. "I'm your murderer." He stalked towards the trooper, his steps confident and precise. "Give me my crystal and I'll make your death swift. Anything else and I'll chop off your fingers and ram them down your throat." He held out his hand expectantly.

Captain Clone didn't like that. It wasn't in his genes to surrender peacefully and betray his masters, even if it meant dying horribly. Rather than hand the crystal over, he turned and began running with it, even though the only place to go was off the side of the building.

Vulcanus shook his head, mildly amused. _Guy must like finger-food. _He turned his outstretched palm over and caught the fleeing trooper with the Force. Then he lifted him up a good foot above the ground and jerked him backwards. When he was within touching distance, he whirled him around so that they were face-to-face and seized the crystal out of his limp, paralyzed hands.

"Why do you guys always insist on making things harder for yourselves?" he asked, though the question was rhetorical.

Captain Clone grunted in response. Not like he could do anything else while hovering helplessly midair.

His crystal held firmly in his hand, Vulcanus dropped his enemy and drew his lightsaber.

Captain Clone was free now, but he didn't have time to savor it. The first two slashes of the humming red saber removed his arms: the third his legs. Vulcanus allowed him an agonizing ten seconds to scream and appreciate the pain before splitting him lengthwise down the middle.

It was, despite his promise, a relatively quick death. Not only did he lack the time for a proper torture-session, but also the will. The guy had been an inferior machine-like clone unworthy of the time of day, much less _his _time.

Returning his lightsaber to his belt, the Sith Lord's eyes traveled back up to the broken window frame where several small faces were crowding to look out at him. Trael was in front, of course. The boy practically worshipped him. His happy face was the picture of excitement.

"Look out," Vulcanus called, "I'm coming up!"

The younglings instantly cleared a space for him.

Gripping the Cindray tightly in both hands, Vulcanus gathered his feet beneath him in traditional Force jump fashion and launched himself straight up into the air. Once he had reached a height roughly level with the window, he willed the Force under him and dropped onto it, giving the illusion that he was standing on thin air. Even from this distance he could hear the awed gasps of the younglings as he ran across the sky as easily as if it were even, solid-packed ground.

Reaching the window he slowed and walked right on through it, ducking his head and taking care to avoid the few jagged shards still lining the frame. Only when he was safely inside did he allow himself to drop to the floor.

"Wow!" several young voices greeted as one.

"How did you _do _all of that?" a few others gaped in out-of-synch unison.

Vulcanus smiled at the assortment of animated, awe-struck faces gathered around him. Surprise, wonder, admiration, hope…all of it was there. Even their injuries weren't enough to keep Jenn-Fa and Nuru from glowing with happiness.

"The Force obeys my command." Vulcanus answered smugly, standing right on the top of Ego Mountain.

"Is that the kind of power Sith have?" the Twi'lek girl without the lightsaber asked, completely spellbound, "That was _awesome_!"

"Yeah!" Trael raced back to the window and gazed out again at the destruction Vulcanus had wrought, as if he had to be sure he had really seen it. "You completely annihilated them!"

Vulcanus absorbed the praise like a sponge. "Of course." he laughed, flushing slightly with embarrassment, "It would take more than an army of clones to bring me down." He stroked his crystal gently. _Well, that was easy._

Now he could go home. Now he could…

The lively chatter of the younglings brought his mind back to the reality of the situation. They were so refreshed, so happy. Their spirits had gone way up since he'd first met them.

It was a whole new experience for Vulcanus. Never before had he been greeted with such joy. Never before had he been hailed as a protector, a _hero_. It was a wonderful experience. His gaze cycled from the younglings to the crystal, then back again.

The Cindray was dull and spent. Vulcanus knew it would take anywhere from one to three days to recharge on its own. By channeling what currently remained of his Force energies into its core he could reduce that time to less than five minutes, but the effort would drain him considerably. Since his plans had absolutely nothing to do with abandoning the younglings to an ugly death at the hands of Vader and his master, who would definitely be returning, it would not make sense for him to handicap himself by recharging the crystal just yet.

At full power Darth Vulcanus would be considered by many to be very close to invincible. In addition to having a vast array of devastating Force attacks at his disposal, he could heal faster, jump farther, and was a lot more resilient to Force attacks inflicted _upon_ him than any of his and his father's AU doppelgangers. His sensory was fine-tuned, his reflexes so sharp that he could dodge blaster-bolts. Indeed, his most powerful Force attack — the one he had to be at complete full-strength in order to perform — had the capacity to wipe out thousands of lives at a time.

But this power was not inexhaustible. Every time he used the Force it took something out of him. The greater the feat, the more energy and focus it demanded. Something small like a Force shove or calling his lightsaber to his hand took almost no effort at all, but fancier tricks like sky-walking and Jabberwocking required the midi-chlorians in his bloodstream to work a great deal harder. Not to mention the strain it put on his concentration.

In this way, his Force reserves could be likened to a special battery that recharged itself immediately after each use, but not always at the rate at which the energy had been lost. The power he exerted using the Force to pick up a chair and throw it against a wall, for example, was replenished by his midi-chlorians almost as quickly as it had been spent. In contrast it took about half an hour to recover the amount of energy lost from ten seconds of maintaining a Jabberwock laser.

So — yes — while he could use the Force to walk on air, he'd better not stay up there for long or else his descent down had the potential to be painful.

Unlike with Jedi, whose powers were so weak that they barely noticed the effects of depletion since the energy they lost was so quickly replaced, using too much power too soon weakened Vulcanus. If he allowed his Force reserves to drop to the point where he was unable to perform all but the most basic tricks ( the "critical-point", as his father called it ) he had roughly a five-hour wait before he would be up to full strength again, providing he used the Force only very little or not at all during that time. He very rarely reached this limit, but he remembered all too well how powerless and weak he had felt the few times he had.

A Jedi probably could have taken him. Wouldn't even have to have been the legendary Obi-Wan.

It was for this very reason that he and his father constantly practiced with their lightsabers: not only did it reduce the need to use Force power, but in the event that either of them ended up in a situation where they reached the critical-point their sabering skills might at least ensure that they would survive long enough to recover. As if their long list of enemies were not enough, many of their so-called "allies" would gladly turn on them if given the chance. Vader and Vulcanus were not beloved rulers by any stretch of the imagination.

Vulcanus cleared his throat. "Alright. Here's the plan: I found my crystal, now we're going to look for some medicine and adult Jedi. We'll start with the medicine. Do any of you know where we might find some?"

"That would be the sick-bay, Darth Vulcanus Sir." The lightsaber-wielding Twi'lek was all to happy for the chance to be helpful, "I would take you there but…the way is blocked."

"Blocked? How so?"

"The ceiling caved in."

"No big deal. I can clear something like that." Vulcanus nodded towards the door. "Lead the way."

With a sparkle in her shiny black eyes, the young Twi'lek turned and headed out the door, Vulcanus and the other younglings right behind her. She leapt back at the sight of a dead padawan she hadn't noticed before in the hall.

"It's alright," Darth Vulcanus assured her, "I'm right here."

The words comforted the child, and she found the courage to make her way around the body of her fallen comrade.

Vulcanus slipped the Cindray into a small black side-pouch he wore along his belt for that sole purpose. As he did so he felt a sudden shudder race through his body, as if his father were behind him and had jolted his nerves with a mild dose of Force lightning. _Uh-oh._

A warning. That's what that was. He'd been using a lot of Force energy in a relatively short span of time. He'd used quite a bit before coming to this universe, and then he'd used more without giving his body much time to recuperate. _I probably still have a ways to go before I reach the critical-point, but I'd better take it easy for awhile. _There would be nothing worse than having all the power of one of his AU doppelgangers in the fight against Anakin ( Vulcanus still couldn't think of him as "Vader"; in his eyes only his universe's Vader was worthy of the title ) and his master.

That would not be fun at all.


	6. A Bad Boy With A Good Soul

* * *

**Chapter 6**

* * *

Trael stuck as close as humanly possible to his Sith guardian, trying to think up the best way to ask his new hero if he would accept him as his apprentice. He studied the lean young man over carefully, mentally gauging his chances. Vulcanus was carefully watching the path ahead. Trael saw his alert eyes flit from door to door, missing nothing. The look on his face was serious, but not scary-serious the way Anakin's had been. He looked like he might listen.

Still, better to be on the safe side. Why not try a little ice-breaker before bringing up the big question?

Casting his eyes to the ground, Trael fidgeted nervously with the hilt of his new lightsaber. "So, you're a really powerful Sith — I mean, Sith _Lord _— and your father trained you? Boy, he musta' really been something!"

He felt Vulcanus's gaze on him, and when he looked up he found himself staring straight into fierce blue eyes.

"You could say that. Actually, not many people know it, but my father was the greatest Jedi that ever existed before he turned Sith." Vulcanus made sure the younglings in back were okay before returning his attention to the path ahead.

"Why did your father turn Sith? " Jenn-Fa asked before Trael could follow up. He was watching the rear nervously, fearful of a sneak-attack like the one that had caught him and Master Yolana off-guard. He'd been lucky to escape that room with his life.

"Eh, number of reasons." Vulcanus answered, "Mostly because of the death of my mother. Well, I think he may have turned slightly _before_ that…it's complicated." _Too complicated._

"Sounds to me like he made the right decision," Trael declared boldly, and Vulcanus nearly choked on the irony as there was no _way _this kid could know what he was talking about, "I want to turn Sith too!"

"Do you even know what the Sith are?" his guardian asked with a chuckle.

"Master Windu said they were like, bad corrupt Jedi who turned to the dark side of the Force." Nuru replied, keeping near the wall.

Vulcanus nodded. "That's not an inaccurate description."

"But you're not like a Sith at all! " the dark-skinned boy cut in, "I don't understand. Master Windu told us all Sith were evil and would as soon kill us as look at us."

"That's true." Vulcanus made no effort to disguise the cold truth to that statement. Whoever 'Master Windu' was, he knew his Sith.

"You didn't kill _us_."

"Well…um…you see…" Vulcanus fumbled awkwardly, "I'm kind of an _unusual _Sith Lord…"

"Are you evil? " the thing with brown scales wanted to know.

"I used to think so." Vulcanus frowned.

"But you don't now?"

The galactic king turned his attention back to the Twi'lek in front. "I'm not sure, okay? " The frustration in his voice was evident, "I won't lie to you — I'm not one of the good guys. If you younglings knew half the things I've done you'd probably have nightmares every night for the rest of your lives. Instead of fighting Skywalker off, I should have been helping him kill you. By saving your lives the way I did…and helping you out now…I'm going against everything I thought I believed in."

"But that's a _good _thing, right? " Jenn-Fa couldn't keep the tiny shiver out of his voice.

"It certainly is for you guys," Vulcanus agreed, following the lead girl through a door connecting to a new hall that was, amazingly enough, both rubble and corpse free, "If I acted like a normal Sith you'd all be dead right now. For me…" He faltered, uncertain. "I don't know. My father wouldn't like this. He'd call me a sentimental idiot and probably be angry with me for days. But we don't have to worry about that, because he's a long ways from here, and I would drop dead from shock if he found out."

There was an underlying element of fear in the silence that befell the younglings after that. They trudged on wordlessly, their eyes falling only on the ground and each other.

Vulcanus could sense the ripples of apprehension he'd caused strong and clear through the Force, but the tension was there strong enough that a non Force-sensitive person could have sensed it just as easily. He didn't like having to scare them like that, but there was no point in sugar-coating the truth. _That would just turn them into a bunch of idiots that would get themselves killed trusting the wrong people. I'm doing this for their own good._

Brutal honesty. They might not like it, but they had to hear it. The last thing he wanted to do was get these kids into trouble later on down the line by misrepresenting the Sith as bad guys with soft spots for children, because that simply wasn't the case. Sith were vindictive, ruthless, cold-blooded killers who would do anything for their own personal amusement and gain. All the sources agreed. The only thing your typical Sith Lord cared about was himself, and if they had a motto Vulcanus imagined it might go something along the lines of '_You above all else.'_

They weren't even loyal to each other. There were plenty of documented cases of Sith Lords abandoning or outright turning on their own apprentices, and vice-versa.

His own father knew all too well the pages of that book — he'd started out as an apprentice who'd turned on his master Darth…what was that again? Sidious? Or maybe Perfidious?

Vulcanus couldn't quite remember.

What he did remember was that Vader denounced his former master as the most foulsome, vile kind of garbage that had somehow managed to seep up from the cesspool of the galaxy and contaminate everything it touched.

"_I don't want to talk about him," _he'd said one night when a seven-year-old Vulcanus — then Luke — had brought the subject up, "_He was a double-faced, lying, back-stabbing son of a Hutt who made promises he couldn't keep. I made his death slow and painful. Savored every moment of it. He was a horrible man, and I would rather hold my face over the filthiest backed-up toilet than have to look at him again_."

There were still so many details Vulcanus didn't know about the circumstances leading up to his mother's death and his father's turn to the Dark Side, but based on the stuff he _did_ know he hated the former emperor almost as much as his father did. Thanks to that wretch his mother was dead.

After a few minutes of wandering through the temple the as-of-yet nameless Twi'lek came upon a door with a big bold '42' on it. "This way." She opened the door and started down what felt like the 50,000th corridor — this one cluttered with debris a little ways down.

Vulcanus was about to follow her when a powerful impulse from the Force stopped him dead in his step.

Pain.

Suffering.

Fear.

Despair.

His head whipped instinctively to the right, where a door labeled 'kitchen' lay up a few paces.

"Vulcanus, what's wrong?" Trael inquired with a worried frown, unwittingly putting himself on a first-name basis with the Sith Lord.

Vulcanus didn't answer: he just fixed the opposing door with a steely gaze. The younglings began to huddle around him in a tight circle, as if they were deathly cold and he was a nice warm fire.

Nuru was practically sharing his cape with him. _I hope nothing else bad is going to happen. _she thought with a shiver.

What she and the others didn't realize was that the overly-serious, harsh look on their guardian's face wasn't the product of anxiety.

Vulcanus had had a peculiar upbringing. From the time he'd been ripped away from the Lars household at the age of four until the time he'd officially became 'Darth Vulcanus' at fifteen, his father had almost never let him out of his sight. Well, Darth Vader wasn't a very happy Sith Lord, and always walked around with an intimidating glower. He wasn't always in a bad mood, but he was certainly good at giving that impression. A fiery glare here, a poisonous snarl there, and he could send even the most ironclad war generals running home to their mommies. In fact it seemed he was perpetually angry.

This was the environment Vulcanus had been brought up in, and without even consciously realizing it he'd acquired that fierce, angry leer. It had become a neutral expression for him. So a lot of times he looked harsh and angry even when he wasn't.

Now was one of those times.

The look on his face said he was expecting trouble and ready to give it hell, but in actuality what he was thinking went more along the lines of: _I wonder what that is?_

As if in response to his thoughts, the overwhelming wave of fear and despair he was getting through the Force amplified. Now he could almost hear a heartbeat; almost see a small form curled in a corner all alone; shivering, quaking…._Another youngling! How could I have been so dense? I'd better get to it before something else does._

"Come on!" He shot through the kitchen door, "Follow me!"

The younglings, naturally, followed without question, but there was a problem. Vulcanus was running, and no matter how fast they powered their little legs they couldn't keep up with a full-grown man in prime shape.

"Wait up!" Trael called as he dashed through an open door he'd seen a plume of black flash through seconds earlier at what he swore was no less than bullet-speed. Being at the head of the youngling pack, he figured it was his responsibility to watch Vulcanus and make sure he led the others the right way. _Wow. He sure is fast. _Halfway through the cafeteria area and he lost sight of the compassionate Sith Lord completely, leaving only the open doors and the echo of boots slapping against marble to guide him.

Leaving the younglings behind had been an oversight on Vulcanus's part. He wasn't used to having to wait for people and hadn't even thought about how fast he was going. The rooms and halls passed by in a nondescript blur of metal and marble as he raced towards his destination, letting the Force guide him. _Almost there._

The signal was getting stronger now.

Thrusting open a door that was badly scarred with the mark of blaster-bolts he found himself on a catwalk littered with dead Jedi. Whether they'd been knights or masters he couldn't tell, but they definitely looked older than the padawans he'd seen in the library. Many were missing hands and arms, suggesting they'd put up more of a fight. Vulcanus tried not to disturb them but in his rush he slipped on a spot of blood and went down on his knees on the body of a large fellow with blue-tinged skin and a sort of cone-shaped head. Ignoring the sickening crack of bones under his weight, he quickly righted himself, and it was then that he discovered the younglings weren't with him.

"Younglings?" He turned back to face the way he'd came, hoping he hadn't left them too far behind, as there could still be a few Storm Troopers prowling the area. Thankfully he hadn't, and he felt a wave of relief when he heard their footfalls draw nearer. He waited until he saw little Trael step onto the catwalk and make eye-contact with him before turning and dashing ahead with a curt "This way!"

He felt bad for the kids having to be subjected to the gruesome sight of their elders all blasted and cut up on the walkway, but there really was no avoiding it. Jedi chose the darndest places to die.

At the end of the catwalk and to the left there was an old-fashioned solid-gray door with a broken lock. Vulcanus knew he'd find his troubled kid within. He barely had to touch the door to send it flying open with a loud 'bang' against the wall. Inside the room was dark and still as death. The shadowy outlines of a broken holo-table and a load of tightly-packed boxes could be made out resting in the far corner. Vulcanus lost no time in flicking on the light, washing the room in a pale fluorescent glow.

The instant he did so he felt a flood of fear surge through the Force — the poor child was terrified now. He followed his intuition over to a pile of knocked-over boxes and carefully kicked a few out of his way.

Sure enough, there was a small storage closet. _Just as I thought._

Throwing the rest of the boxes aside, he pushed the little green button to the right of the door and it slid open with a hiss of air.

There he was.

Barely more than a small quaking ball of beige robes with shiny black hair, the little boy scrunched up in the corner with his head tucked firmly behind his legs and his hands clasped with a death-grip over his knees made for the most pathetic sight Vulcanus had ever seen. He was shaking badly — even worse than a leaf on a windy day — and making small whimpering sounds in the cloth of his outfit.

_Poor thing. _Vulcanus's heart went out to the frightened child, and at the moment it was as if all traces of everything remotely Sith-ish left his body. He couldn't explain the strange new instinct that overtook him just then: the powerful urge to comfort and protect.

The child lifted his head and looked up at him with dark, watery eyes that widened in horror at the sight of someone whom he did not know. Tears began to stream down his ashen face in a torrent. "Please! Oh Mister, please don't kill me! What have we done? What have the Jedi done?" His voice cracked and he nearly choked on his own tears.

Vulcanus's naturally fearsome façade melted away. "Hey there, it's alright." he soothed in a voice that was so gentle it barely sounded like him at all, "I promise I'm not going to hurt you." He reached down to help the kid up, only to draw back again when the child recoiled.

"Y…you're not?" If the words had comforted the boy to any degree it didn't show. He was still shivering and shaking and crying like a lost babe. He blinked in the light, registering. "Who are you?"

"A friend who wants to help you." The blond-haired Sith kneeled down on one knee and forced a tiny smile so as to appear less intimidating. He offered his hand, and this time the boy reached up and placed his own hand squarely in the open palm.

How cold it was!

Alarmed, Vulcanus closed his fingers over it to warm it.

The act of kindness was misinterpreted by the boy, who tensed his muscles and made a pitiful attempt at a recoil.

"No — it's alright. I'm just trying to warm your hand is all. You're freezing." Vulcanus felt the child relax a bit in his grip, and he brushed the fingers of his free hand lightly over the pale forehead, casting aside a few ebony lochs in the process.

The kid flinched a little at his touch, as if he were afraid it was all just a lie and he was going to die at any second.

_He's unusually timid for a Jedi youngling. _Vulcanus reflected, recalling the fact that Jedi normally did not select fearful Force-sensitive children for training for the reason that fear bred anger and hatred, and could eventually lead to the Dark Side, _He must have seen something that traumatized him bad. Something so horrible…probably the deaths of his friends out on the catwalk._

But that couldn't be, could it? Judging from their missing limbs and saber stab-wounds the Jedi on the walk would have had to have been killed by Anakin, and that being the case he surely would have sensed a youngling hiding right under his nose.

On the other hand, he had also seen the tell-tale signs of blaster-fire, which meant that a group of Storm Troopers had accompanied the dark lord.

Doing the math to get two plus two equals four, what most likely had happened was that Anakin had killed the adult Jedi and then left the troops to deal with the stray youngling while he went off to take care of more pressing matters. Vulcanus could easily see that happening: the Anakin in his universe had quite the annoying habit of assigning him all the trivial stuff while he went on to hog all the big stuff—and every last drop of glory that came with it—all to himself. It was just lucky for this kiddie that the particular batch of Storm Troopers that had been on hand to finish him off had been too stupid to check places like closets.

Seemed to Vulcanus that the Storm Troopers in his universe were smarter. Most of the ones he interacted with there were very thorough in their work. Not so in this strange reality of slackers, halfwits, and Sith-wannabes.

"Hey! Maryo, I thought you were dead!" Trael had come up behind Vulcanus and was now standing at his side, peering over his shoulder at the black-haired kid.

The boy — Maryo — coughed. Then his whole face lit up. "Trael! Oh boy am I glad to see you! Are the others okay? How's Master Yoda?"

"I don't know where Master Yoda's at, but all us younglings are okay thanks to _him_." Trael gestured to Vulcanus before continuing in an excited rush, "Oh Maryo, you shoulda seen it! The clones all turned on us, as you already know, so Tray-Zing sent us to the Council Chambers to hide. Well, we were almost getting reeeally scared when the door opened 'an Master Skywalker came in…"

At the words 'Master Skywalker' Maryo's lower lip quivered and he began trembling more intensely than before. He burst into tears before his friend could say another word. "_He_ did it!" he managed between sobs, his voice hoarse and shaky, " Master Skywalker he…he killed them. All the Jedi out there…he was my hero and he _killed_ them. Then he ordered the clones to kill _me_…" he couldn't get his breath to continue he was crying so badly, part of his little cream-colored Jedi tunic damp with tears.

Overcoming his powerful urge not to show 'sentimental weakness', as his father would call it, Vulcanus pulled the disheartened kid up against his chest and wrapped him in a warm, comforting hug.

Maryo buried his face into the Sith Lord's shoulder and wept some more, his whole body shaking and cold to the touch.

"There there, it's alright," Vulcanus said softly, patting the child's back a little in an extremely awkward display of affection, "You're safe now. Skywalker can't touch you while I'm here. He's gone away and you don't have to worry about him." _Yeah Vulcanus, you're such an evil Sith Lord._

While all this was going on, the rest of the younglings had filtered into the room and spread out; some standing, some sitting on the floor or boxes. The effect the 'catwalk of death' had had on them didn't show readily on their faces, but the general theme was quiet solemnity.

Nuru was perched on the broken holo-table. She started to say something, but Vulcanus silenced her with a quick "Shh."

For a full minute he stayed there, just holding and comforting Maryo. Then he stood up, removed his long black cape, and wrapped it around the youngling to keep him warm. _Yes, they'll be fearing my name for centuries to come._

"Thank you." The small boy managed a weak smile of gratitude and cuddled deep within the folds of fabric. He'd stopped crying and wasn't shaking nearly as much anymore.

Vulcanus scooped him up and slung him partway over his shoulder. Then he addressed the healthier younglings. "Okay, let's get to that medicine room. Same Twi'lek leads the way." _Dad would be so proud._

The Twi'lek girl smiled in that special way her species had that seemed to include both the mouth and the eyes. "My name is Ola."

Vulcanus nodded. "Right then, Ola. Lead the way!"

Ola did, and this time Vulcanus followed at the rear of the procession, carrying a worn-out Maryo in his arms. He was a little embarrassed at having broken down and shown his softer side in front of all the younglings like that, but in a strange kind of way which he didn't fully understand yet he was happy he could show affection. It made him feel good about himself on a level that he couldn't describe. No, he decided, his dad didn't know what he was talking about — there _was_ something to be gained from helping others, something special.

As he left the room, he had one final thought: _I might as well be a Jedi._

x-X-x-X-x-X-x

Upon reaching sick-bay, Vulcanus laid Maryo to rest on a little stretch-bed with snow-white sheets and blankets. He asked him if he would rather have the regular blankets and sheets to sleep in instead of his cape, but Maryo politely declined, saying that the cape made him feel safe and protected. So Vulcanus let him keep it.

After that he dressed Jenn-Fa's and Nuru's wounds with bacta-based ointments and salves prepared specifically for those types of injuries and made sure their bandages were snug but not so tight as to cut off circulation.

Nuru would definitely be okay — she'd suffered the equivalent of a mere scratch — but things were a little less certain where Jenn-Fa was concerned. While the ice on his side had possibly saved his life by preventing serious blood-loss, it had also given him a mild case of frostbite, just as Vulcanus had feared. The formerly red gash had turned into a large blue-violet welt that spanned the boy's left side for three or four inches, and the skin surrounding it was all stiff and pale blue. It had to be painfully uncomfortable, but other than treating it and tying it up with a bandage what else could be done?

Thankfully everyone else was in reasonable shape, and Vulcanus decided the best course of action would be to keep everyone in the sick-bay until he had a chance to recover at least some of the Force powers he'd spent earlier. Anakin and his master could not be far off by now, and if he was going to serve them up a double-dose of humility he needed to be as close to full strength as he could get. So, while the younglings sat cross-legged on the glaring white floor and chattered excitedly in low voices about the events of the day, and wondered if their masters had escaped, he stretched out lazily across a mattress that was lying on the floor and closed his eyes, intending only to rest.

Turned out he was more tired than he'd judged, and he soon drifted into a troubled sleep.

__

Cold, hard metal. Darkness all around. Barely light to see.

He was aboard a ship; a merciless, cruel ship bearing him to the blackest regions of the universe.

Pain. Fear.

The Force wept blood under the strain of an evil so powerful, so consuming, it all but destroyed everything in its path, leaving behind only a graveyard of fragmented dreams and the hollowed-out husks of those it eviscerated from the inside out.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunkthunkthunkthnuk!

They were coming. They would be here soon. Their footsteps were thunder on the hard floor. There was no stopping them. No chance of escape.

Trapped!

So cold.

He cowered in the black abyss. Waited for them in silent company. She was there with him, of course. She was scared. Her body trembled against his.

"Luke, I'm afraid." Her words: a delicate whisper almost lost in the dark.

He cuddled into her. Fought off the fear — fear was weakness. "It's okay Leia. I'll protect you."

Blinding light!

A shadowy figure looming into view…

"Leia! "

Vulcanus's eyes snapped open. He jerked up into a sitting position with a suddenness that startled a group of small children that were gathered around him…

_The younglings. _He felt his muscles relax in relief. It had all just been a nightmare. He didn't realize just how tense he'd been until he happened to glance down at his hands and notice the pale crescent imprints of fingernails on his palms.

"Darth Vulcanus, Sir, are you alright?" a youngling just out of his field of vision called.

Vulcanus swallowed and nodded, trying to shake the images from his head. "Yes. It was only a bad dream." _A really bad dream that keeps coming back the same way over and over._

That night still haunted him. If only he'd never ventured out on his own, if only he'd listened to his father…

"Who's Leia?"

Vulcanus blinked, visibly startled. "Huh?" he said dumbly, still a bit shaken from his nightmare.

"Leia." Trael repeated, giving him an odd look, "You called the name out just before you woke up."

Vulcanus frowned and stood up, an echo of sadness dulling his eyes. "Leia is…was…my sister. She…waitaminute." He paused, his sudden stillness silencing even the quietest whispers of the younglings scattered about on the floor.

There were two Force-sensitive beings out in the hall. Vulcanus could sense their presence as easily as if they were making a loud racket. _How long have I been out?!_

They were heading this way!

"Stay here." he barked, drawing his lightsaber and activating it at lightning speed. Rushing to the door he pressed the panel to open it and sprung into the yawning hallway, instantly dropping into an aggressive crouch and holding the glowing red blade almost horizontally out in front of him.

It turned out to be a false alarm, however, as the two creatures in the hallway were definitely not Sith. One was an incredibly short green thing with long ears and a wooden walking stick. The other was a middle-aged human male with light brownish-blond hair and the beginnings of a small beard complete with moustache and long, neatly-trimmed sideburns. Both were dressed in the same kind of attire Vulcanus had seen on the dead Jedi — comfy, loose-fitting robes and tunics, all in shades of cream and brown.

"A Sith Lord!" The man's lightsaber was in his hand in an instant, the blue blade coming to life with a snapping hiss.

But the green thing only shook his head. "Relax, Obi-Wan. Mean us harm, he does not."

_Obi-Wan? _Vulcanus squinted at the man; he knew that name. _That's…that's Dad's old mentor! Great! These are just the Jedi I've been waiting for! _His stance slackened and he lowered his lightsaber.

"Master Yoda, are you sure?" Obi-Wan was certain he must be hearing wrong. Either that or the Force had deceived him. The strange young man standing before them was clearly the Sith Lord who had attacked the temple. Why would Yoda say something like that? He kept his lightsaber raised, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. _I hope Anakin is alright…_

In a surprising move, Vulcanus deactivated his lightsaber and slid it back into place along his belt. Then his mouth twitched in the beginning of a smile, and Obi-Wan swore he saw a flicker of astonishment play across his eyes.

"Yoda's right. I don't want to fight you. You startled me is all."

"Startled you?" Obi-Wan jabbed his lightsaber at him, "You are a Sith Lord!"

Vulcanus made a half-hearted shrug. "True. But I'm a Sith Lord who's saved your younglings." He turned to the door to call them out, but he needn't have bothered because the door burst open all on its own just then and the younglings flooded out past him into the hall. At the sight of familiar faces their eyes sparkled with joy and they rushed quickly to both Jedi, smiling and laughing and thanking the Force they were okay.

"Master Yoda!"

"Master Kenobi!"

"It sure is good to see you!"

"I'm so glad you're okay!"

Then they all started talking at once like waterfowl, at which point not a coherent sentence could be discerned above the racket.

Vulcanus smiled. It was good to see them reunited with their fellow Jedi. Now he could leave this universe with a clean conscience.

He was just about to turn and slip out of their lives quietly when the brown-haired girl leapt in front of him and threw her arms around his waist, snuggling him tightly.

The mass of younglings quieted down.

Obi-Wan had put his weapon away, and now he and Yoda were left staring in disbelief at the strange sight of a little girl hugging a 'dark' lord of the Sith.

"Thank you," she said, gazing up at him with teary brown eyes, "thank you _so _much for protecting us." She couldn't reach his face, so she grabbed his hand and kissed it before turning back around to face the Jedi, a beautiful smile lighting up her features. "Don't worry about our Sith Lord, he's just a bad boy with a good soul."

Vulcanus turned a lovely shade of red with embarrassment and awarded his company a crooked grin.

Yoda smiled warmly.

Obi-Wan was the perfect picture of surprise. _This is a Sith Lord! _It was unreal. He could sense a darkness around this stranger, yes, but it apparently didn't reach to his heart. "Who are you?"

"Call me Darth Vulcanus."

"Darth Vulcanus?" Obi-Wan echoed, still coming to grips with the idea of a friendly Sith Lord.

"I have an unusually powerful command over lava and fire." Vulcanus explained readily, then turned as he remembered the sleeping kid in the other room. "Hold on a sec, I think we're missing a youngling." He darted back into the sick-bay, and Obi-Wan and Yoda exchanged curious glances.

"What do you make of this?" the blue-eyed Jedi Master asked his green companion in a low voice.

Yoda was thoughtful. "Strong, the Dark Side is in him. The power of his heart, stronger still. An unusual case, he is. Seen the likes of it before, I have not."

Scarcely had the words left his mouth than Darth Vulcanus emerged carrying a small limp bundle swathed in black cloth.

"Here." He handed the child to Obi-Wan. "This one's been traumatized. I found him alone in a closet shaking like a leaf."

Obi-Wan pushed a fold of fabric away from the boy's face and recognized Maryo right away. He was sleeping — his eyelids twitching in rapid jerks that suggested he was dreaming. There was nothing irregular about his breathing, and when he stirred a bit Obi-Wan felt a twinge of relief.

Somehow, being carried out by a Sith Lord, he'd expected the child to be in worse shape.

His eyes shot up to Vulcanus, who had taken a few steps back and was looking on proudly, as though he truly felt he had done something praiseworthy. _And he has, but what's his motivation? _"Are you _sure _you're a Sith Lord?"

Vulcanus held his hands apart and crackling blue-violet tendrils of Force lightning whipped back and forth between his fingers. "That answer your question?" At the older man's astonished gape, he added, "Yeah, I really put the 'S' in 'Sith', don't I?"

Odd as it was, Obi-Wan thought he seemed almost embarrassed by that. "You're the one who attacked the temple then?"

Vulcanus shook his head with vigor, as though the very idea were absurd. "No. I have nothing against the Jedi. They tend to stay out of my way."

"Really? Then why is it that many of the bodies around here have slash wounds on them, wounds that could have only been inflicted by a lightsaber?"

"Hey, I'm not saying this temple _wasn't_ attacked by a Sith, I'm just saying I'm not the Sith who did it. You might want to talk to your apprentice Anakin Skywalker about that."

Obi-Wan almost dropped Maryo. A cold feeling of dread began to creep its way into the very marrow of his bones, slowly freezing him from the inside out. He kept his eyes trained firmly on Vulcanus, searching his face for any signs of hesitance or uneasiness that would betray a lie.

"What are you talking about?" he uttered slowly, deliberately.

Vulcanus crossed his arms and rose up to the challenge of the older man's gaze, locking eyes with him in an intense stare-down. "What do you think? It seems kinda silly, doesn't it? A vicious Sith Lord like me goes tearing through the Jedi Temple murdering everything in sight only to turn around and protect the younglings? That makes about as much sense as the Gungan 'Swamp-Hopping' Festival. Anakin has turned to the Dark Side. He and the clones attacked this place under the order of his new master. If you don't believe anything else I say, at least believe that."

_No! It can't be…he wouldn't do it…not Anakin…Vulcanus is lying, he has to be. He attacked then temple himself and_…And this train of thought was heading fast down Illogical Lane. As much as Obi-Wan didn't want to believe a word this strange — okay, downright _weird _— Sith Lord was saying, the truth of the matter was that he had protected the younglings, the younglings seemed to love him, and if he _had_ attacked the temple it would, like he himself had pointed out, be a pretty odd thing for him to hand the younglings unharmed over to a pair of Jedi masters without making any demands or any move at all against them. His mind told him that all that made sense, and that there was at least some truth to Vulcanus's words.

But the notion that Anakin could have anything to do with the slaughter of the Jedi was too much for Obi-Wan. He simply could not bring himself to believe that his apprentice, whom he had raised from the age of nine and who was like a brother to him, would ever do such a terrible, evil thing.

So his heart rebelled against the idea.

Vulcanus may have done a wonderful thing by saving the younglings and staying with them until Jedi arrived, but that didn't change the fact that he was still a Darksider with unclear motives. It was too weird to think that such a person would ever do anything out of the kindness of his heart. He had to be after something.

Shifting Maryo's weight to a more comfortable position, he said in a measured tone, "You're lying. Anakin would never do something like this. If you weren't in on the attack, then what were you doing in the temple in the first place?"

"But Master Kenobi, he _isn't_ lying." Trael broke in, quick to jump to Vulcanus's defense. He darted out in front of Obi-Wan and held up Anakin's lightsaber. Obi's eyes widened with horror. "Master Skywalker did turn on us. We were all hiding 'an he came into the room 'an lit his lightsaber. He tried to slash my head, but Darth Vulcanus saved me. Then he gave me Skywalker's lightsaber. See?" He waved the hilt of the weapon around in the air to lend credibility to his story.

"Kid's right," Vulcanus added immediately after Trael had finished, " I walked in on Anakin just as he was about to start a fresh game of 'Kill The Youngling.' If it weren't for me he would have sliced them all to shreds. Honestly, I don't know who thought it would be a good idea to make that man a Jedi, but if I were you I wouldn't allow them to make anymore big decisions. My what a temper!"

The world stopped for Obi-Wan Kenobi. His heart froze in its next beat. He'd heard the words, yet somehow he hadn't really _heard _the words. It felt like someone had plunged a hundred thousand icy pins into his face and chest and then dunked his head into freezing water. _No…oh no…_The thoughts would not come. His mental processes came to a grinding halt.

He set Maryo down gently off to the side. He _had _to. It was too much, just too much…his eyes flickered again to the metallic lightsaber hilt, now held steady in the boy's hand.

It was definitely Anakin's. He would have recognized it anywhere_. Not Anakin…how could you betray us? How did I fail you?_

With a face as grave as stone, he turned again to Vulcanus. Struggled not to let the inner turmoil of his mind shine through to his face where he could be read like a book. If Vulcanus _was _playing him he'd know he had him hooked by that.

He opened his mouth to ask the dreaded question, the one he feared the answer to. "Where's Anakin?"

Vulcanus's eyes sparked with a playful light. "He couldn't handle the truth."

"What truth? " Obi-Wan inquired as stoically as possible.

"That I am more powerful than him." Vulcanus lifted his chin proudly, and Obi-Wan had to check the urge to say something that would be most unfitting for a Jedi master. "Oh, I didn't kill him, if that's what you're thinking. I just roughed him up and chased him off. I figure he'll be back any minute now with his master to try to get revenge, so you guys had better get going while the going's good. In fact…" He shut his eyes briefly before opening them again with a light flutter. "They're entering this planet's atmosphere as we speak."

Yoda had been silent for the past few minutes, but now he spoke. "Danger, I sense. Powerful is the presence of the Dark Side. Right, Darth Vulcanus is. Action we must take."

Darth Vulcanus blinked at him. "Can you talk…straight? You're kinda confusing me."

"Nevermind that," Obi-Wan's skeptical eyes narrowed on Vulcanus. Something was bothering him. Well, a _lot _of things were bothering him, but one thing in particular stood out like a big sore toe. He was surprised Master Yoda hadn't already honed in on it. "If Anakin's master is a Sith Lord, and Anakin himself has turned, how can _you _be Sith? I thought there were never more than two."

"Oh, not this again." Vulcanus groaned in frustration. Were all Jedi this distrustful? _Just because I'm Sith_…"Look, it doesn't matter, okay? The important thing is for you to get the kiddies out of here, because a huge Sith fight isn't the safest place for them to be."

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow in interest. "Oh? You're going to fight them then?"

"Of course. Whatdy'a think, that all Sith were friends? Those two really rub me the wrong way. Now get out of my way so I can buy you guys enough time to escape."

_Get out of my way? _For some reason the lack of courtesy surprised Obi-Wan. He didn't know why. _This is weird. He's like a cross between a Sith and a Jedi. _But now wasn't the time to dwell on the anomaly that was Darth Vulcanus. A spur-of-the moment decision needed to be made.

_Anakin…_The name stung like a bullwhip in Obi-Wan's mind. Despite all the circumstantial evidence, and even the testimonies of the younglings, a part of him still couldn't believe that…_No. I won't think about it. I won't allow my feelings for Anakin to cloud my judgment. _Hard as it was to resist the temptation to confront his former apprentice and see for himself how far he had slipped, and as difficult as it was to ignore the small nagging voice that said he might be able to save him, Obi knew the younglings' safety must come first. It wouldn't be right or practical to just leave them with Master Yoda while he went off to face Anakin. Even if things were different, the only thing more unbearable than the thought of Anakin turning to the Dark Side was the thought that he might have to kill him because of it.

No — if Anakin had to die, Obi-Wan wanted no part of it. Better to let this Sith-Jedi take a stab at it, and if it turned out that he ended up having to confront Anakin later on anyway so be it.

Yes, he decided, that was the way forward.

The trap-signal calling all surviving Jedi to the temple had already been disabled, and if this guy thought he could take two Sith plus any backup they might happen to have on hand then more power to him.

All this contemplation took only a few seconds. The spur-of-the-moment decision had been made.

However, there was still one question he would like to have answered if he could. Call it a natural curiosity.

"Alright," he relinquished, "but first tell me who you _really _are. You may have been trained in the ways of the Sith, but I'm having trouble believing that you _are _one."

"I _am_ one. But unless you've been smoking the funny fern, you'd have even more trouble believing the truth if I told you." Vulcanus admitted.

Obi-Wan forced a wry chuckle. "Try me."

"Alright. I'm Luke Skywalker, Anakin's son from the future. I'm also from an alternate universe where my father is much more powerful than he is here. We rule the galaxy together and have the technology to travel to other universes, but that technology is kinda random and could use improvement. Which is how I ended up in this mess. Now step aside or be _shoved _aside. They're getting closer."

_This guy's crazier than a pod-race through Death Gulch! _Obi-Wan didn't for a second believe a word of that nonsense, but Darth Vulcanus had said it with a very straight face and something told him he wasn't going to get another answer.

He was right.

Vulcanus didn't wait for a reply or even a reaction; he just started forward, and Obi-Wan along with a few younglings cleared a path for him. Having cleared the Jedi, he broke into a run: feet flying over smooth polished floor. A second later and he vanished inside one of the temple's many rooms, leaving the Jedi to their colorful speculations about him.

X-x-X-x-X-x-X

He wasn't sure why he was doing this. He already had the Cindray; he should just pump it full of power and go home. Chalk the mission up as yet another failure. Sure, his father would be furious, but there was nothing out of the ordinary about that. Vulcanus knew he wouldn't take it out on him.

__

But then the Jedi won't have a big enough head-start.

Letting the Force guide him, he flung open another door. Breezed across a large room in what seemed like two strides. He didn't even notice any details of the room — his mind was on other things.

_Don't do it. _a cold voice somewhere inside the depths of his mind whispered, _You don't owe these Jedi any favors. You've done too much for them already. What would your father say if he could see you like this? He taught you better. Foolishness to waste your energies fighting and risk prolonging your stay. What if something happened to the Cindray? Then you'd really be in a fix, wouldn't you?_

Another room.

Another.

Another.

They all flashed by in a blur of earthen colors.

Vulcanus didn't stop moving. The ship was landing now, he could feel it. Unfortunate that he'd started out halfway across the temple.

An enormous stone statue of a woman lay in huge chunks and fragments across his path. He launched himself over it with ease and sped out onto a bridge into daylight. The bodies of several dead Jedi and Storm Troopers littered the walk.

_See how weak they are? _the icy demon of his thoughts purred, _They deserved to die. All you are doing is prolonging the inevitable. The only reason beings like the Jedi exist is because idiots like you let them._

Still, Vulcanus pressed on.

He could see the ship now: a large yet stylish spacecraft of a make he wasn't familiar with. As he watched from the bridge, it settled down on a bare landing platform a hundred feet below. The hutch opened and a legion of Storm Troopers began to pour out.

Vulcanus's muscles tensed.

_Leave it, _the coldness prompted, _it isn't worth it._

For a moment, Vulcanus hesitated, considering.

Maybe it really would be best to just go home…

_And miss my chance to show these guys how it's done? _another part of him argued,_ Never! What's **wrong **with me? I am DARTH VULCANUS — I don't run away from fights! If I'm going to hide from Dad's lame double and an old man who probably wouldn't know true power if it came up and kicked him in the face then I might as well pull out my lightsaber and castrate myself on the spot._

There was no honor in running away; he was a Sith Lord, and by all the planets he was going to _act_ like one!

The Storm Troopers all but ran down the ramp, as if they were being chased by something. Presently they fanned the sides of the ship, breaking off into orderly units where they stood still and straight as flagpoles. There were about fifty of them by Vulcanus's estimate, and likely another twenty or thirty still onboard the ship.

Fair number. He could handle that.

A deathly silence gripped the moment as two imposing figures shadowed in dark cloaks strode purposefully down the ramp.

There they were: Anakin and his master. They must have sensed Vulcanus's presence, for no sooner had they set foot on the landing than they were staring up at the bridge.

Vulcanus couldn't make out their faces as anything more than blurry ovals from at this height and angle, but he could feel their eyes boring into him and sense their unease.

Why keep them waiting?

With a single Force-powered leap he cleared the rail and dropped ten stories in a freefall — the wind ruffling his hair and threatening to steal his breath. He landed solidly on his feet, most of the shock from the fall absorbed into the Force. He felt almost naked without his cape, and like he wouldn't be quite as intimidating, but there was no helping that now; Anakin and his master were only a few paces away.

Putting on his most conceited, holier-than-thou look, Vulcanus covered the distance with the air of a true king. Ten feet from the Duo he paused, not yet ready to put himself within slashing range. "Welcome to your destruction."


	7. Vulcanus vs Vader & Sidious

**A/N**_: Sorry about the __**ridiculously**__ long time between updates. I imagine many of you would like to Force choke me good. I really don't have anything to say for myself, other than other fandoms seduced me ( as they will! ), and this story and its parent kinda got forgotten for a while. _

_Okay, almost 3 years to the day, according to the stats. —hides and curls into the fetal position— _

_This chapter was originally a lot longer, and was going to be the final installment. I decided to split it in two because this part focuses on the battle and the next half deals with the aftermath and different issues._

_So you get another chapter! Chapter 8 is 95 percent written-out in the spiral notebook, then I'll need another few days to type it up, since I can't touch-type and I have obligations that don't allow me to sit at the computer all day. But I _**PROMISE **_that it _**WILL** _be out very soon, unless something _**REALLY** _bad happens to me or my family. Finishing this story is my Number One fanfiction priority, and you will most definitely not be waiting longer than 8 days in a worst-case scenario ( right now I'm thinking 4 is probably a very reasonable expectation ). _

_Special thanks go to reviewer **Steve Fett**, for giving me the review that reminded me this story still existed, and prompted me to update it._

_Oh, and you might want to go back and re-read the last part of Chapter 6, if you've been following this story for a while. The last 500 words mysteriously got cut out somehow, and I'm not sure how long it had been that way before I noticed and fixed it.  
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_As always, visit my author bio for the most up-to-date information regarding these stories._

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**Chapter 7**

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"That's him! That's the one who attacked me!" Anakin hissed, "Let's finish him!" His yellow-and-crimson eyes smoldered with hatred. He went for his replacement lightsaber, only to have his master's withered hand catch his.

"Patience, my apprentice." Darth Sidious said in a low, crackling half-whisper.

Anakin moved his hand and looked put out.

The master Sith Lord lifted his head, unveiling a warped, deeply-wrinkled visage with loose bags of chalky-gray skin hanging rather unattractively from his heavily-aged face. A few stray strands of white hair poked out from the edges of his black hood. "Darth Vulcanus. An honor to meet you. My apprentice says you are unusually strong with the Dark Side and possess skills and powers that would make even me black with jealousy."

Vulcanus made a face. "He's right, but with a face like that the feeling can't be new to you. You're not just ugly, you're _shockingly_ ugly."

The old Sith gritted his teeth menacingly, causing Vulcanus to cringe not in horror, but disgust. "You would do well to mind your manners, boy!"

"Or you'll, what? Glower at me some more?" He drew his lightsaber, activating it with a quick motion of the wrist.

Anakin and Darth Sidious quickly followed suit, their blue and red blades searing the air as they sprang into existence.

"Let's just get this over with. The sooner I kill you, the sooner I don't have to look at you." Vulcanus thrust his trusty red laser-blade straight forward like a spear, aiming for Sidious's throat. Sidious's own blade rose to parry it...crimson struck on blue, and Vulcanus's lightsaber was knocked off-target by Anakin's immediately before being cast off by Sidious's.

Sidious laughed as Vulcanus twirled his lightsaber back into a defensive position. "You're going to have to do much better." He leered at his opponent, certain of victory. Perhaps Skywalker had over exaggerated this, this _Darth Vulcanus_'s powers. Even if he hadn't, it was going to take more than a few fancy sabering tricks and Force fire and ice to overcome him, his apprentice, and a small army of onhand clones. _Now, young one, we shall put you to the test._ He charged out with a perfectly-executed attack to the side, his faithful new apprentice backing him up.

Darth Vulcanus countered every intended blow expertly, fending off both lightsabers with the ease Sidious would one. _Hmm. He __**is**__ good. No wonder Vader was unable to take him alone. _

Again and again his and Anakin's attacks came up short while their enemy lost no ground. Vulcanus's lightsaber was moving constantly — a snaking ribbon of red shooting into the path of each attack without tire.

_It __**is**__ more of a challenge. _the younger Sith Lord was forced to concede. Anakin was no trouble at all — he could block him blindfolded with one arm tied behind his back. His master, on the other hand, was slower but more skillful in his approach. While Anakin whipped his weapon around in a furious frenzy, slashing and stabbing for a critical area every chance he got — sometimes at the detriment of his defense — the old Sith Lord was more concerned with a solid defense and only attacked when a reasonable opportunity for an actual hit on flesh presented itself. Together, they made a lethal combination. Anakin's whirlwind of fast-paced attacks kept Vulcanus on the constant defense, leaving him more open for Sidious. His master swordsmanship and incredible Force intuition and precognition kept him safe. The trouble was it was much harder to break _two_ defenses than one.

Much as he loathed it, he was going to have to dip into his Force reserves to speed this battle up, even if it meant that much longer of a wait before he could go home. _Oh well. At least I'll get to show off._

Tendrils of lightning!

Vulcanus brought his hand up and absorbed them back into the Force, simultaneously hopping back to avoid an Anakin slash. _Why didn't I turn it back on him? _

Habit.

Pure habit.

That was why.

Anakin narrowed his eyes and drew up his lip in a menacing, cocky smirk that was second-nature to Vulcanus's father. "What, no snarky quips or snappy comebacks this time? I thought you relished a challenge." His flesh-and-blood hand lashed out. Whipping currents of lightning charged from the fingertips and palm.

Vulcanus absorbed the attack through his invisible Force shield along with another from Sidious. Both Sith kept their Force lightning flowing, hoping to break through.

Vulcanus awarded them a lopsided grin. "Oh, but I do, and believe me, I have plenty to say." He mustered more of the Force behind his shield and launched it out in a massive shockwave of energy that swept the lightning all the way back to its source and knocked both Sith flat on their backs before they even had time to register, their lightsabers flying from their hands and automatically shutting off upon impact with the ground.

The assemblage of Storm Troopers lining the platform flinched, but made no move to help their fallen masters.

Vulcanus pointed his blazing blade at Anakin, who was already leaping to his feet. "_You_ couldn't fight your way out of a wet paper bag, and _you_" he turned the lightsaber on Sidious, also in the process of recovering his footing, albeit more slowly, "are just pathetic. Oh sure, you like to play the part. Look at me, I'm a terrifying Sith Lord! Watch me throw lightning and toss big things around with the Force! Fear my lightsaber dueling skills, even though any little girl worth her salt could dodge my blows because I move like I have arthritis." He paused, shaking his head and tsk-tsking, thoroughly enjoying the dangerous glares being sent his way. "Please. Sorry, but the ability to clear a room simply by removing your hood doesn't count as a Force power. So far, Gramps, I haven't seen a shred of evidence to convince me that you even _have_ any real power. I mean, aside from looking scary and sending your apprentice to do all your dirty work for you, what is it that you _do_?" He lifted his free hand to his face and examined his nails, a deliberate goad.

"You arrogant upstart!" Sidious's voice burned hot with hatred, "You can't _possibly_ be a Sith, much less a Sith _Lord _like you claim. Where's this Force ice and Force fire you're supposed to have?"

The second the words were out Anakin shot a doubtful, almost worried look to his master. "Master, if I may —"

"You want to see them, do you? Happy to oblige!" Holding his lightsaber in place with the Force, Vulcanus cast both hands out in front of him and fired three generous-sized balls of fire in rapid succession from one hand while simultaneously mirroring the action with iceballs from the other.

Master and apprentice dove to either direction and called their lightsabers back to their hands, the blades snapping back to life in just enough time to be used against the flying shards of ice from the rupturing-in-midair iceballs. The fireballs hit the ship, leaving no marks on the highly heat-resistant surface.

"Fun as it is to play around with you guys, I have appointments to keep." Vulcanus announced airily, grabbing his floating lightsaber and switching it off. _Time to kill this guy._ He doubted very much that Anakin would continue to attack after that. _But first, I'd better take out the Idiot Squad._

Sidious threw more Force lightning, which he easily avoided. Then, before the duo had a chance to do anything else, he gathered his legs up beneath him and sprang into the sky with a massive Force leap that propelled him a good fifty feet up. Landing on the strip of living Force he'd called beneath him, he extended his palms towards the gathering of Storm Troopers below.

"Fire! Kill him!" Darth Sidious commanded his lackies, a strong desperation to his fear-laced tone.

The troopers fired at precisely the moment Vulcanus unleashed a truly mighty form of Force push that reversed the direction of the blaster bolts and shoved all of the troopers on the left side of the ship over the edge of the landing. They fired blindly and helplessly as they fell, likely to their deaths. Vulcanus had to repeat the treatment for the second legion barely after the first had left his hands, harmlessly deflecting blaster fire and sending another twenty-five men tumbling over the edge. These, too, kept firing, though the only things they were hitting were the sides of buildings and each other.

_Eugh! _Vulcanus felt his windpipe start to constrict. Anakin or Sidious — maybe both — were trying to Force choke the daylights out of him.

Summoning a great surge of Force, he fought it off. Let the Force "floor" beneath him slip away.

As he dropped, he kept a sharp eye out for flying objects, blaster fire, or any other surprises. Anakin's master was desperate now and would do anything to snuff him out or escape.

Sidious turned to Anakin, and the young Jedi-turned-Sith saw the subtle-yet-unmistakable signature of panic reflected in his face and eyes. "He's too strong. We'd better retreat — for now." he said, and his voice cracked a little under the forced confidence.

Anakin nodded. "This isn't helping Padmé." _And here Palpatine — Sidious — was sure, so sure this Sith was a phony we could easily beat together. Serious err in judgment. I have to wonder if he means what he says about there being a way to save Padmé…No. He's telling the truth about __**that**__. He has to be._

But if his new master was wrong about the number of Sith and Darth Vulcanus's threat level…no. He wasn't going there. Palpatine had already proven himself to be a knowledgeable expert; he couldn't be expected to know _everything_. And anyway, there was no going back. If trusting the Sith Lord turned out to be a mistake, it was one he was going to have to live with for the rest of his life.

But that was that — right now he had to concentrate on getting back to the ship, or he may very well not live long enough to worry about protecting Padmé or anyone else.

Letting Sidious lead, he hung back a bit, keeping a watchful eye on Vulcanus and prepared to defend himself and the key to Padmé's recovery.

Vulcanus was on the ground now. He had absolutely no intention of letting this universe's version of the man responsible for his mother's death — whether directly or not — get away when he had him so close. _Oh no you don't._

Reaching out with his left hand and the Force, he picked the fleeing vermin up and pulled him towards him.

"Mmraaw!" Sidious's strangled growl of complaint was inhuman.

Anakin's hand shot out, and Vulcanus felt a strong tug of resistance as his airborne soon-to-be-kill slowed.

"I'm not letting you have him!" Anakin snarled savagely, his eyes large and frightening.

"Too bad you don't have any say in the matter." Vulcanus retorted, summoning an extra surge of Force that tore Sidious free and sent him vaulting a little ways past him. He cut his connection immediately and reactivated his lightsaber in a moment, concurrently Force choking both Sidious and his apprentice as he did so. He rolled his eyes. "That was embarrassingly easy. If you guys were a product, I'd get my money back."

"Gaaahh!" Sidious grasped his throat with both hands, struggling to free his windpipe. He was on his knees with his head bowed in agony, the hood of his cloak down to fully reveal his thin, blazing white hair.

Vulcanus could feel him fighting back with the Force. Pathetic. Useless. He reached him in a bound and poised his lightsaber dramatically over the ugly white head. Just because he could. "Not that it's going to make any big difference, but would you like to impart any dying words of wisdom on me? You may have a fraction of my power, but you look at least five times my age, and that has to count for something." He let up his Force chokehold just enough to make a reply possible.

Sidious gasped for breath. His eyes trailed first up the long red shaft of burning light, then into the proud, gleeful eyes of his enemy, where he saw two smaller, grimacing Sidiouses reflected back at him.

There was only one thing to do.

"Darth Vulcanus," he rasped, putting on his most respectful face, "Truly you are a great Sith. Possibly —"

"Sith _Lord_." Vulcanus snorted, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "To even _suggest_ that I am less skilled than you is downright insulting."

"Sith _Lord_," Sidious corrected, "Possibly the best in the history of the galaxy—"

"No, _definitely _the best in the history of the galaxy, if you and your little pet are anything to go by." Vulcanus gestured offhand to Anakin, who was slumped over on the ground several feet away busily fighting against the Force.

Sidious had to quell the urge to grind his teeth. "Fine, the greatest Sith Lord in the history of the universe," he conceded with a sickly cough, still somehow managing to retain most of his respectful intonation, "the point is, for all your power and skill, you still lack experience. Join with me, and I will show you how to harness your talent and the Force in ways that will make you even _more_ powerful. Together we will rule the galaxy!"

"Yeah? What about Anakin over there?" He lowered the point of his blade uncomfortably close to Sidious's neck.

The older man broke out into a sweat, eyes swelling nicely. "He is weak…useless. We don't need him. Kill him! Kill him and become my new apprentice! With my experience and your power, we'll be unstoppable!"

Anakin cocked his head and glared at his master. His expression was pure hatred. Neither Vulcanus nor Sidious seemed to realize that he was free.

Amusement play over Vulcanus's features; this guy would do anything to save his own butt. "Thanks, but if that's all your apprentices mean to you, I'd rather marry a Hutt. Besides, I already have a master, and he's exponentially better than five of you." He laughed at the way Sidious paled at that. Then he turned his Force choke back up so that the other Sith Lord was once again battling for breath, the cold air never making its way into his tired, aching lungs. "That's right: I'm just the apprentice. A shame you couldn't meet my master; the best only comes from the best. But then, you probably wouldn't want to. He wouldn't let you prattle on with lame self-serving propositions nearly as long as I just did. Goodbye."

One quick swipe and Sidious was headless. The pieces fell to the platform with a heavy 'thump'.

_That felt good. _

No matter what the universe, it simply wasn't a good idea for Darth Sidious to go messing with the Skywalkers. If his and his father's doppelgangers wouldn't do anything about it, Darth Vulcanus would. Scum like that should not be allowed to waste air, much less lord over any form of Skywalker.

_Anakin._

Sensing a threat, Vulcanus whirled on him, lightsaber raised defensively. Anakin's eyes followed the blade, but he didn't look as though he feared it. "If you insist, we can finish this. But to be honest, I'd be just as happy to let you go. I've got things to do, places to go, and I'm already falling behind schedule." _Please, please go away. I really don't want to maim or kill you._

He dared not try to knock him unconscious — there was always a chance he'd hit him too hard.

Once, when he was just eight years old, he'd accidentally killed a friend that way. The only friend he'd had at the time, actually. They'd been rough-housing — normal boy stuff — and in the heat of the moment Vulcanus threw him back with an instinctual Force shove, causing the back of his head to crack against the corner of a counter. When he didn't get back up, Vulcanus initially thought he was still playing. When the horrible truth sank in, he'd been devastated. His father had comforted him, of course, but from that point on he took special care never to use his Force powers against friends or anyone he'd mind killing, even in play. To this day he still misjudged his power sometimes, and when he was in front of his subjects he always pretended it was intentional.

Anakin met his gaze, unfaltering, tufts of golden-brown hair ruffling in the crisp breeze. _He still feels sooo familiar somehow…why? _

The air was filled with the hums and whirs of a thousand flying motor vehicles as Coruscant continued with its busy day-to-day in the background, unaware of the Jedi's massive loss and the showdown happening on their temple's landing platform.

Ignorant.

So very ignorant.

Blissfully unaware that their lives could be changed forever in the bat of an eye.

For a moment, neither Skywalker said a word, each attuning to the lifestream of the Force and waiting for the other to make his move.

Anakin's eyes shunted briefly to the spacecraft, where a trio of Storm Troopers were just emerging from the hatch — probably to check on the situation. They started to raise their weapons, but Anakin stopped them with a gesture of his hand.

Refocusing on Vulcanus, he spoke. "You truly are as great a Sith Lord as you say. My master was foolish to so gravely underestimate you." To Vulcanus's surprise he kneeled down on one knee. Keeping that same calm and highly respectful tone, he continued. "I would be honored to be your apprentice. Sidious was a snake and I never should have trusted him."

Vulcanus broke out into a grin. _Hah! This is rich! If only Dad could see me now! A version of him bowing to me…his expression would be priceless. _"As tempting as the offer is, I really don't have time for an apprentice these days." He deactivated his weapon. Put it back in place.

Anakin blinked and appeared confused. "What? But I still have so much to learn…"

"And I'm sure you'll do fine on your own." Vulcanus said, "With Sidious out of the picture and the Jedi decimated, you can take over and become Galactic Emperor or something. I don't know. It's your life. Just leave me out of it, because once I leave you're never going to see me again." He spun on his heel and started walking towards the bridge, never letting his guard down even with his back turned.

"But the secret to stopping death!" Anakin called, racing after him, "I must have it!"

"I wouldn't mind having it too." Vulcanus replied without looking back. _A simple leap back on to the bridge and he's stuck down here talking to himself…what the…Obi-Wan?_

The Jedi was running up along the bridge, shouting something Vulcanus couldn't make out.

He squinted, trying to get a better look.

He appeared to be chasing something…

"You mean you don't know how to stop death?" Anakin was closer now — almost within lightsaber range. His frustration was obvious.

"No." Vulcanus was only half paying attention, "Not even my master knows that."

Anakin refused to believe it. "But Sidious said —"

"Sidious would say anything to get you on his side," Vulcanus stated, unknowingly confirming Anakin's worst fears, "He'd promise the power of the Big Bang and the Elixir of Eternal Youth if he had to, no matter how impossible it would be for him to deliver. Guy like that — honesty's not really high on his list." He coiled the muscles in his legs, focusing intently on the bridge one-hundred feet overhead. "I'm outta here!"


	8. Homecoming

* * *

**Chapter 8**

**

* * *

  
**

The leap was at the very height of his limit, and it took all the power and Force he could muster to make it all the way to the top, where he willed the Force beneath him and used it as a springboard to launch himself forward and up at an angle. He landed somewhere near the middle of the white-and-gray structure with the elegance of a creature that had been designed for such business. The sun hit his eyes, and his hand instinctively flew up to shield them.

"Vulcanus! Darth Vulcanus, Sir!" Trael Kitsun flung himself into his hero and embraced him warmly in a heartfelt hug. "I'm so glad I found you!"

Blinking the remaining glare out of his eyes, Vulcanus stared down at the fluffy blond head. It was the first time in a long time he'd been grabbed unexpectedly by someone he hadn't even perceived in the area.

"Trael! Come back here!" Obi-Wan demanded, giving Vulcanus a look that said he was still unsure about him, "We can't leave without you!"

"But there's somethin' I hafta ask!" Trael insisted, letting go.

Obi-Wan reached them and stopped, careful to maintain a reasonable distance between himself and Vulcanus. The younglings might be safe around this oddball, but adults could be a different matter. The frown he wore was one of concern. "Alright. But hurry up."

Trael looked Vulcanus straight in the eye. Beaming, he asked "Can I be your apprentice?"

Vulcanus gave him a weak smile. _Aw. How cute. _"Sorry, but I'm not allowed to have any apprentices." He reached down and ruffled the boy's hair in a clumsy friendship gesture. "My father would kill me. And you."

Obi-Wan was just about to coax Trael into to heading back with him when he felt an almost overpowering swell of frustration, anger, desperation, and regret in the Force.

Anakin was close by.

Ignoring the safety-conscious part of his mind which urged him not to take his eyes off of Darth Vulcanus, he lunged to the side of the bridge. Grasped the whitestone-and-metal edge that served as a railing. And looked down.

There he was. His apprentice; the man he thought of as a brother. He was just standing there on the landing platform, staring up at them. If Darth Vulcanus had hurt him at all, it couldn't have been very much. The height made facial expressions a bit difficult to discern, but Obi-Wan didn't need to see him up close to know he was the spitting image of emotional torment with the line of his mouth set as hard as stone and flames-turned-to-ice spewing forth from the cold furnaces of his eyes. Several feet away from him, shrouded in a black cloak, lay the motionless body of what appeared to be another Sith — his newest master?

_Darth Vulcanus must have slain him, but why did he spare Anakin? That's twice now he's had the chance to kill him and didn't. Unless…maybe there's a grain of truth to that story he told me?_

It seemed preposterous, but then, Master Yoda hadn't discounted the idea, and they had no proof there _weren't_ other universes out there. At the very least, Vulcanus had an affection of sorts for Anakin, which, if he were lying about his origins, defied logic, sanity, and everything Sith.

Whatever the case, Anakin was incapable of matching Vulcanus's super Force leap, and his frustration at this grew more powerful with each passing second.

_I have to reach him. We have to talk. _For better or worse, Obi-Wan had to hear Anakin's side of the story. He owed him at least that much. Whatever happened after that…well, he'd cross that bridge when he got there.

_Hold on, Anakin. I'm coming. _Pulling away from the rail, he turned to Vulcanus. "I can't believe I'm asking this, but can you get Trael back to Master Yoda? I have some unfinished business with Anakin."

To his semi-astonishment, Vulcanus was agreeable. "Sure. I don't mind spending more time with my Number One fan, and I need to recharge a bit before I can go home anyway."

Trael waved happily to Obi-Wan. "Good luck! And be careful. Anakin can get awfully mean."

"So I've been hearing." the Jedi Master uttered under his breath. Giving Vulcanus a curt nod of appreciation, he bolted along the bridge back the way he'd came, where he knew there was an elevator not far.

Trael watched him go for only a moment before returning his attention to his Sith Lord friend. "But I really want to be your apprentice," he half whined half begged, big brown eyes sparkling with hope and admiration.

Vulcanus frowned and shook his head. "No."

"But there has to be a way…"

"There isn't."

"You could hide me from your father and train me in secret."

"No I couldn't. Kid, I live in another dimension. In that reality, my father is Emperor of the galaxy, and I'm King. People pay attention to what we do and who we're with, believe me. Even if I ordered my men to be silent on penalty of death it wouldn't change the fact that my father can almost read minds through the Force, has his own secrets-finding task-force — many of which I suspect may be focused on me — and there are millions of prying eyes out there. So even if we tried that, there's no guarantee you still wouldn't be found and murdered anyway."

Far from being deterred, Trael was fascinated. "King? You really _are_ a king?"

"Yes."

"An Master Skywalker's son from another universe…the _future_ of another universe?"

"What can I say? Sith lie, but in that case I wasn't." He gestured towards the edge of the bridge. "And if you think _this_ 'Master Skywalker' is mean, hoh boy, you oughta see my father. Compared to him this version is the embodiment of kindness and patience. And, I know I've already said that my father is much stronger with the Force than this cheap imitation, but I really can't emphasize that enough. Comparing one to the other would be like comparing a fancy toy TIE fighter to the real thing, like….like a gas giant to a terrestrial world."

Wonder and excitement played about Trael's features. "Wow," he marveled, "What about the Jedi?"

One corner of Vulcanus's mouth turned up in the ghost of a smirk. "My father and I killed them all." he said point-blankly, lying through his teeth to make his reality sound less appealing.

"But you told Master Kenobi that the Jedi didn't bother you."

_Damn. Kid has a good memory. _Vulcanus's near-smirked gave way to a comical, frustrated scowl. "Yes, well that's _why_ they don't bother me and stay out of my way." He grabbed Trael by the arm and started off in the direction Obi-Wan had gone. "Come. Let's get you to that green midget with the speech disorder. He'll take you and the others someplace safe where you can finish your training and grow up to be good little Jedi. Save the day and all that good stuff." In spite of his efforts, he couldn't stop the sarcasm and disdain from slipping into his tone. He didn't agree with the Jedi way, and any child could see that.

Trael Kitsun was no exception. "But I don't _want _to be a Jedi anymore," he declared, tugging against Vulcanus's grip and planting his feet firmly on his next step, "I want to be a Sith, like you."

Vulcanus stopped and gave him a scary, dead-serious look. "Oh, is that so?" he said hotly, suddenly savage, "You want me to teach you how to kill the weak and be feared? Could you handle it? Could you plunge your lightsaber through the hearts of lowly nobodies, chop off the heads of those who got in your way, and ignore all the whiny sob-stories people give for why they and their precious families should live? I killed a man once for failing to address me properly. Sliced him in half before he even knew what hit him. Then his brother, who had been watching, broke down into a crying fit of sentimental weakness, and I threatened to kill him too, if he didn't get his act together. You think that's cool? Is it something _you _could do?" Releasing the boy's arm, he drew his hand over his belt and glided his fingers over the silvery lightsaber hilt. "I've destroyed entire cities, entire _worlds_. And I didn't feel a twinge of remorse. I like it. I _love_ it. You do as I say or you die. Sometimes I kill people even _if_ they do as I say, just because I feel like it. Just because I _can_. I laugh at their so-called suffering. Then I stomp them like the insects they are." His eyes shifted abruptly from their relaxed light-blue to the flaming Sith red-and-yellow.

Trael jerked back, startled.

"I think maybe you don't understand how cruel the Sith can be. How cruel _I_ can be." His voice was a cold growl; not a glimmer of kindness or compassion lingered in his now brutally harsh face. He freed his lightsaber and activated it in the blink of an eye: a sharp crimson line reflected in two brown pools of innocence.

Trael stood his ground bravely — looked him right in the eye without flinching or displaying even the tiniest shadow of fear.

Vulcanus arced his weapon. "I hate to do this, but you leave me no choice."

The merciless blade blazed through the air.

And stopped dead short of slicing the top of Trael's head off; a sandy-yellow lock of hair actually incinerated on the burning laser.

Vulcanus's fearsome façade melted away. "I could have killed you, you know." he sighed in defeat. His eyes returned to normal.

A small smiled slithered onto Trael's face. "I knew you wouldn't."

Vulcanus snorted, but there was far more frustration than anger in the action. "Suppose you'd been wrong?"

Trael did not even attempt to step away from the deadly blade that hovered no more than an inch from the side of his head. "I knew I wasn't."

"But if you _had_ been?"

The boy shrugged. "Then I'd be one with the Force. Better that than not gettin' to have you for a master."

Vulcanus groaned. "Oh, no wonder Anakin almost killed you!" He withdrew his blade and frowned sternly at the small child who apparently didn't fear Sith in any way, shape, or form. "_You _are _impossible_."

"Then I getta be your apprentice after all?" Trael was almost bouncing on his heels. _Yes! I did it! I proved myself to him! I —_

"No." Vulcanus killed the laser blade and slipped his weapon back into place. "Just get that out of your mind. I'll walk you back to where you belong, but that's it. If you keep bugging me, I'll just abandon you and let you find your _own_ way. There aren't any Storm Troopers alive in there to worry about, and Anakin's busy with his ex master. You don't really need me anymore." He started forward again.

_So why are you walking with him, then? _his ever-present demon pressed, _All the more time for you to get attached, and you _know _what your father said about _that_. _

"But I do!" Trael was crushed. He kept pace at Vulcanus's side, staring up at him forlornly.

Vulcanus averted his gaze and refused to look at him. This was much more difficult and confusing then he ever imagined it would be. The kid didn't understand. He _couldn't_. Yet his determination was so strong that nothing Vulcanus said or did would convince him to give up on his fool's dream.

They made it to the ajar temple door in a charged silence, stepping over and around debris and the bodies of the fallen. Just as they were passing through the threshold, Trael said "Lord Vulcanus, Sir, don't you like me?"

The question pounced on the Imperial King like a feline predator on an ungulate, taking him completely by surprise. "Well, I uh…of course I do."

It wasn't a lie, yet it came out sounding phony and stilted all the same.

Vulcanus mentally kicked himself, but it was too late to try and fix it now — he'd only sound even more insincere. Still he neglected to make eye-contact with his little friend, choosing instead to keep his focus resolutely on the path ahead. _Too bad I'm not as big a champion with words as I am dueling. Well, the nicer words anyway. I've get this kid so messed up he thinks I'm the messiah and can't tell black from white. I probably look like the biggest, fattest hypocrite in the whole freakin' universe, too. Not that he cares. I could sell him cordless extension cords if I wanted._

Where were those Jedi?

Vulcanus reached out with the Force to see what he could get.

"Then why don't you want to be around me?"

Vulcanus's concentration shattered. He finally met the youngling's gaze.

Trael's sad, pleading face said it all. He looked like a baby animal that had just been abandoned by its mother, kicked, and thrown out into the cold rain to fend for itself.

A foreign emotion stabbed Vulcanus's heart — how could he care so much about someone other than himself and his father's _feelings_? Lives were one thing — and that in and of itself was a wonderfully gray area — but _feelings_?

Ridiculous!

They were unimportant and trivial, like the dirt beneath his feet. He certainly didn't worry about feelings when he was making his rounds, having fun, or punishing those who rubbed him the wrong way.

A small, subdued sigh escaped his lips as he reached up and massaged his temple lightly with two fingers, eyes downcast. He was so distracted that he almost tripped over a slab of broken marble. They were walking around the fallen giant statue for some reason, even though it would have been nothing for Vulcanus to grab Trael and leap over it.

"Listen, Trael…I think we'd better clear the air here. It's not that I don't like or want to be around you. It's that I _can't_. My life is too busy. My father is an 'evil bad guy', to put it in a language you can understand. The likelihood that you would die within the first week is quite high, and even if you don't care about that, I _do_." He paused to lift a few large chunks of collapsed wall and debris out of the way with the Force before continuing. "Besides, even if we pretend for a moment that my father had a complete and utter change of heart and personality and decided to accept you, that still wouldn't change the fact that you're never, _ever_ going to get as powerful as us with the Force —"

"That's okay —"

Vulcanus went on as though he hadn't been interrupted. "Oh, sure, you say that's unimportant _now_, but how will you feel ten or twelve years down the line when my father and I are still throwing Force lasers out of our hands, leaping a hundred feet high, moving too fast for your eyes to follow, pulling ships out of the sky, splitting the ground open, controlling fountains of lava, and running on the air and you're still struggling to throw Force lightning and lift large objects? You won't be able to keep up with us. And you'll be a liability — the weak link our enemies seek out. Even in the best case scenario we'll still outlive you; my father and I are filled with so much midi-chlorian it actually greatly slows our aging processes. So we'll still be fairly sharp of mind and body even when you're a white-bearded old coot reminiscing to anyone who will listen about the good 'ole days when you still had it." He shook his head. "No. Just…no. This really is the best way for you, Kiddo. We'll find the green guy. He'll set you straight. And if he doesn't, _don't go looking for Sith_. Most of them aren't anything like me. At all. End of discussion."

Trael went silent, and Vulcanus could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he took it all in.

They reentered the hallway in which they'd first encountered Obi-Wan and Yoda. It was just as they had left it, minus the younglings and Jedi.

The Force told Vulcanus to keep going straight; the Jedi Master and his batch of kids were hesitant to leave, probably because they were waiting on Obi-Wan and Trael.

"I understand." Trael finally relinquished. This time, when Vulcanus attempted to meet his gaze, his eyes fell to the floor, as though he couldn't bare to look at him.

Vulcanus nodded slowly and awarded him a very thin, strained smile. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" He said with false cheer, "Trust me, after a while you won't even miss me."

The wall to their right collapsed in without warning, drawing Vulcanus's immediate attention.

Trael offered up a smile of his own. _Yes. Yes I don't think I _will _miss you._

**X-x-X-x-X-x-X**

It didn't take Vulcanus long to find Yoda and the other younglings and reunite Trael with them. They were really happy to have him back — Vulcanus figured Trael must have been their unofficial leader in the absence of older people. The problem was that they were equally as elated to have their guardian Sith Lord back, and not in the least thrilled with the idea of him leaving their lives forever.

How they begged and pleaded with him to stay!

Jenn-Fa said he was a powerful force of good who could really help the rest of the Jedi recover.

The brown-haired girl — bless her heart — even went so far as to call him the very soul of goodness, a compliment which made him blush all over and feel mightily awkward and guilty inside since it was so very, very untrue.

Ola said the Jedi needed him — _they_ needed him — and when he'd pointed out that Jedi needed a Sith like a coat on Tatooine she'd merely laughed and declared she would _wear_ a coat on Tatooine for as long as he wanted if it would make him stay.

Master Yoda knew better than to hastily affix a label of 'good' on him just for doing one or two good deeds, and knew fully well that he was, in fact, a Sith, and not merely a Jedi with an identity crisis. Nonetheless he didn't correct the children or try to dissuade them from praising their dark savior or trying to get him to stick around.

Vulcanus didn't fully understand why; perhaps he already knew the outcome. Or perhaps, maybe, he knew the younglings now more than ever needed something to believe in: a hero.

In truth, it was a little of both, but he never dreamed that there was a third element, and that it involved him personally.

Yoda knew that Vulcanus needed to hear his praises sung. Needed to see the smiling, loving faces of these small children in all their innocence trust and adore him for all the good he had done. Because Yoda knew — even if Darth Vulcanus didn't — that the experience would fundamentally change him.

Not in a big way. Not at first. Maybe never in a big way. But the seeds were sown, and now all they needed were the right catalysts to start them growing; perhaps the tears of the grateful. Or the joy of unselfish love. A Sith he may be, but Darth Vulcanus had more Jedi traits than most.

Yoda wondered what his master/father thought of that — if he even noticed.

Finally, after a few long goodbyes, Vulcanus turned away from his adoring fan club and raced off for lonelier parts.

Yoda smiled. _Treat a person as he is, remain as he is, he will. Treat a person for what he could be, become what he could be, he will._

**X-x-X-x-X-x-X**

Vulcanus didn't know where he was going. Someplace quiet and private, he supposed. But now that the Jedi Temple was an empty, massive graveyard, he had plenty of places to choose from.

So why was he charging through the rooms and corridors as if he already had a place picked out and knew exactly how to get to it? He'd already passed several suitable areas along the way. Any of those would have done.

Yet hefelt compelled to keep on…he was running from something.

Running from the younglings.

Why?

It wasn't like they could follow him, especially at this clip and with Master Yoda keeping a watchful eye over them.

No.

He'd seen the last of them for sure.

He breezed through a large double-door and ended up in what was probably the slumber party/ extra-large meditation room, as it was vast, bland, and almost completely lacking furniture or equipment. One of the grande windows was busted in and splintering shards of glass coated the short tan carpet.

_Okay, _Vulcanus thought with a degree of amusement, pausing in the threshold, _Official favorite Jedi color is tan. They prefer their rooms to be spacey, familiar, and without décor or personality. My god, they're boring. If this place were mine, I'd have the fanciest stained-glass windows, an assortment of different-colored furniture that actually looked good, a black carpet, interesting lighting, holo portraits of natural disasters hanging from the wall, and an actual use for this room. And just while we're on it, why the spotted lipercats do the Jedi need so many rooms for sitting around peacefully getting in touch with the Force? Does the Force really hate them so much that they have to work so hard to 'connect' with it? Do they have to make it offerings, do little dances and rituals to earn its favor?_

An eerie stillness hung in the air. Coruscant's traffic hummed faintly in the background. A gentle breeze gusted in through the window and caressed Vulcanus's face in a light, almost flirty manner.

This room felt too exposed.

Sure, there wasn't anyone here now, and likely wouldn't be for a while, but sooner or later the planet's primary authority figures were going to work up the nerve to come in and investigate. Nowhere near a threat, but definitely annoying. Vulcanus didn't feel like dealing with anyone else in this reality.

He took the Cindray out of his pouch and stared at it. The beautiful diamond-shaped crystal was still dark and dead, but a soft, fragile pink glow was just beginning to color the point of one end.

The Cindray was coming back to life. But not nearly fast enough.

Vulcanus brushed the fingers of his left hand over the facets lovingly.

And sighed. _I have to charge it up. But first, I have to charge myself up. Two hours' rest should do it._

He wasn't sure exactly how long he'd been asleep in the sick-bay, but he'd woken up feeling much more revitalized and the fight with Anakin and Sidious hadn't taken anything too substantial out of him. Still, he wanted to be at full-power for the recharge, because it _would _take a lot out of him, and he preferred not to enter his own reality at the critical-point.

As he gazed into the technological — or should that be mystical? — marvel, he couldn't help but to wonder why it had appeared away from him on this trip when it hadn't on all the others, how it had ended up where it had, and if it was going to do it again.

He noticed a door down the long hall on the far left side of the room. It felt inviting somehow. Warm.

Still deep in thought, he headed slowly towards it.

_What made this trip different? What did I do differently? _

He hadn't done anything differently. Unless…._Just before I set out, Sky Lieutenant Avena gave me a smoky quartz crystal ring for good luck. _His eyes fell to the ring, still nestled snugly on his left pointer-finger. The band was a rare white silver which glinted and shimmered with every move of his finger like fresh-laid snow on a moonlit night. Twisting strands of it rose up to tightly embrace the medium-sized cut of quartz, which, true to its name, resembled a normal clear crystal which had been hung over the smoke of a fire and absorbed some of it. Compared to diamonds and other rare gems it wasn't particularly lustrous or interesting to look at, but when light — particularly sunlight — struck its tiny facets at just the right angle it sparkled with a brilliant rainbow of purple, green, and blue, with flecks of fiery red-orange.

Vulcanus knew that of all the precious gems and minerals crystals of any type were considered the most powerful because of their strong influence on and ability to change, absorb, and channel the energy fields which were said to surround every living and nonliving thing in existence. Since these energy fields were, in fact, the living Force in its purest form, crystals were constant Force disruptors that, when focused upon with a trained mind and will, made Force feats much, much easier and sometimes even possible for non Force-sensitive beings to perform. Which made a crystal ring a natural compliment to any Force user.

The Cindray was a very special crystal that acted as an unfathomably powerful superconductor, retainer, and multiplier of the Force. It was this extreme power that allowed it to cut through the fabric of space-time and warp its users to another universe. It was not a product of nature, but rather the most highly-sophisticated technology in probably all of Creation, and unique in its ability to gather so much energy without being willed to do so, multiply it by a large factor, and store it indefinitely until willed to release it in the form of transportation.

_Could my ring have messed it up somehow — repelled it from me? _

Vulcanus didn't see how it could have, since his smoky quartz wasn't even a speck of dirt in the shadow of anything in the shadow of the Cindray's magnitude, but he _had _been holding the Cindray in that hand last time he'd used it.

Did size really matter when it came to crystals? Could something with such a weak Force influence as the smoky quartz actually disrupt the Cindray's energy flow?

Possibly. Probably not very much, but then the Cindray hadn't appeared very far away from him, had it? Not considering that it had a whole planet, galaxy, or even universe to work with. The interference had been minimal.

The ring had been in _very_ close proximity to the crystal at the time. The connection was present, and it was the only thing that made any sense, so Vulcanus decided to go with it. _I'll take the ring off and put it in the Cindray pouch before I go ahead with my traveling plans this time._

Reaching the door, he opened it and was greeted with an eyeful of half a dozen rows of bunk-beds lining each side of two walls across from each other in a fairly large room. The frames were all made of the same simple gray metal alloy, and the mattresses were all dressed in the same monotonous brown blankets with folded-back white sheets. The carpet was a little thicker here, but still that blasted tan. There were no windows.

Vulcanus placed his ticket home back into its pouch and zipped it tight. Then he went over to the nearest bed and dropped down on it.

It was unpleasantly firm.

"You know, these Jedi do _not_ know how to live," he said scathingly, not caring that there was no one around to hear him complain, "I can almost forgive the lack of identity and taste, but _damn_ — only a droid could sleep on these beds without getting sore and bruised all over." He patted the mattress for good measure and rolled his eyes. "Yep. Like sleeping on clouds. What type of rock did they use to make these?" He grabbed the pillow and fluffed it.

It was pretty stiff, too.

"Well, I found their prison chamber. And here everyone tried to tell me the Jedi didn't have one. Pfft."

Vulcanus took the ensuing silence as an agreement. Still, beds were beds, and he didn't have anything better to do while he waited.

Undoing the Cindray pouch from his belt, he slipped it just out of view underneath the bed, rolled over, and closed his eyes, relaxing. He tuned into the Force, trying to sense any potential threats.

There were none.

Secure in the knowledge that he would wake up instantly if anyone were to enter the room, he slipped into Dreamworld.

This time it was kind to him, and the reliving of painful memories did not occur.

**X-x-X-x-X-x-X**

Yoda disappeared around the corner, midway in the youngling herd.

Trael knew that if he was going to go, it had to be now. Yoda would never abandon the others to look for him, and if he brought them along he risked exposing them to more danger, and they'd just slow him down. Once Obi-Wan came back it would be a different story.

So he had been hanging out at the very back of the procession, waiting for just this opportunity. The moment Yoda was out of sight he turned around quietly and power-walked the other way, careful not to run as it would just draw attention.

Once he felt he was far enough away he broke into a gallop down the halls, trying to sense out Vulcanus's path.

Ahead!

Left!

Right!

Trael wished he was better attuned to the Force and could trust his judgments wholly. The Jedi Temple was a big place, and as fast as Vulcanus moved he couldn't afford to waste time getting lost.

But for better or worse, he _would_ find him.

No matter what.

**X-x-X-x-X-x-X**

Vulcanus's eyes snapped open. It was a sudden awakening, for no particular reason than maybe, perhaps, he had unwittingly set a subconscious alarm-clock at the back of his mind.

As usual when he went to sleep in an area not graced by the presence of a timepiece, he had no surefire way of judging how long he'd been out, but it had to have been at least two hours because he felt fully-powered and invincible.

A bit sore, also.

Stupid rock-bed.

He stretched heartily, then rolled off the bed and onto his feet. The Cindray pouch was right where he left it. Taking it into his hands, he switched it with his crystal ring before reattaching the pouch to his belt and sealing it shut.

_Now it's just me and you. _The crystal lay comfortably in his open right palm, dull and almost back but for the faint glow. Vulcanus closed his hand over it so that the upper third jutted out and began concentrating.

He pictured the ever-moving strings of Force that ran through and surrounded everyone and everything. Envisioned them obeying his silent command and channeling through his hand into the Cindray. Willed them to do so in the form of pure, raw energy. Fierce blue eyes locked on to the dark crystal with a bird of prey's intensity.

For the first half a minute, nothing seemed to be happening, even though Vulcanus could feel the Force flowing out of him. Then the weak pink light of life began to emerge in the innermost core of the crystal. It lingered there for a moment, collecting strength, before billowing out for the whole length of the shaft.

Vulcanus continued to feed it.

Two minutes later and the whole core from end to end was blazing with a luminous, gentle pink. The glow began to work its way out slowly, turning dark to light. The edges of the facets were just beginning to blush when Vulcanus's hand started getting a bit warm.

A few seconds later, and the feeling had spread throughout the rest of his body. The midi-chlorians were working overtime.

Still, he plugged on, pushing them — and the Force — to the max.

Another minute or so and the Cindray shone so brightly that its edges were no longer visible; it looked like Vulcanus was holding a sliver of pink star.

It was full. It wasn't taking any more.

Vulcanus cut his efforts and exhaled a crisp sigh of relief. He wasn't tired physically, but he felt tremendously drained Force-wise and his extreme concentration had given him a slight headache, just like all the other times he'd done this.

By experience he knew he wasn't yet at the critical-point, but he was dangerously close. His intuition and senses were blunted probably to Jedi level. Two strong shudders went through his body — it wasn't uncomfortable, really, just his midi-chlorians' way of telling him to give them a break. He couldn't agree more.

"Alright. I am _out of here_." He shut his eyes and began to envision his home reality and his own personal Command Station inside the Volcano lair where he wanted to appear.

So caught up was he that he didn't notice the faint scrape of fabric against carpet.

_Take me home. _

The mental command stimulated the Cindray to glow so brightly its light filled the room.

Trael was at Vulcanus in an instant. His hand shot out and clamped over both the crystal and Vulcanus's hand.

The Sith Lord's eyes flew open at the same moment the Cindray put forth a blinding flash and sent them hurtling through realities.

**X-x-X-x-X-x-X**

_**Flash!**_

The world changed instantly.

Vulcanus and Trael appeared in the center of a large oval room lined with workers in crimson uniforms sitting at computer terminals. An additional bank of computers and controls in the shape of a big 'V' flanked them to either side, with a comfortable black leather rolling chair empty and waiting at the point of intersection.

The workers, startled by the brilliant flash of white and popping noise of displaced air, pivoted in their seats and noticed them at once.

"Lord Vulcanus!" several out-of-synch voices gasped. As one they rose and saluted him, each doubtlessly hoping he was in a good mood.

But their king was too busy staring in disbelief at the blond child standing almost at his side, tiny hand glued to the once-again-dark Cindray, to appreciate the respectful greeting.

"_Trael!_" he exclaimed, absolutely dumbfounded. He couldn't believe the kid had actually managed to sneak up on him and grab the crystal at exactly the wrong time like that. It was unreal.

While his Sith friend stood there gawking at him in a state of total shock, Trael took his hand off the Cindray and offered him an apologetic look. "Sorry. But I couldn't let you go! You're my hero. If this reality's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." A boyish smile broke on his face. "No matter what happens."

Vulcanus blinked twice, registering.

Then his great surprise changed to frustration. "How'd you find me?"

"Intuition."

"How'd you get in without opening the door?"

"I didn't. I came in while you were asleep, shut the door, and hid under a bed to wait and see what you'd do when you woke up, and if you'd find me. You never checked to see if anyone was in the room."

Vulcanus scowled. _What is _wrong _with me? Why didn't I wake when…waitaminute_. _The Force would wake me if something potentially __**harmful**__ came in the_ _room. Trael doesn't fit into that box. Aw, fried womprat tails soaked in vinegar! What a mess!_ "How'd you know when to come out?"

"A little bitta intuition and a little bitta hearing you say it was time to leave."

Vulcanus crossed his arms, one end of his mouth fixed up in an annoyed grimace. "You're a pain in the neck, you know that?"

Trael nodded. Then he spun in a slow circle and helped himself to a look around the room, brown eye widening with excitement as they took in all the state-of-the-art supercomputers, richly expensively cutting-edge technology, flashing monitors, glowing gauges, and uniformed workers standing attention with a likeness to statues. "Wow…where are we?"

"My Command Station on Tatooine." Vulcanus's pride was staggering. Yet his mind wasn't on himself. He was in the process of trying to decide what to do with the boy, and how to do it.

"Whoa…this is…" Trael's eyes again moved over the workers, who dared not move or even speak, it seemed, without Vulcanus's express permission. "Are these your friends?"

"Hardly," Vulcanus said, amused by the innocence of the question, "They're some of my very best technicians, liaisons, strategists, communications specialists, security and planet monitors...you get the idea. Their job is to keep me informed of anything interesting that might be going on."

"They seem so…nervous."

"That's because they know a single mess-up could cost them their lives. The Empire doesn't tolerate failure, or disrespect." He returned the Cindray to its pouch, wishing he could will the annoying pain in his head away. His eyes fixed on Kodis, his top security guy.

The man stood firmer under his sight, his expression that wonderful mix of afraid-to-make-the-wrong-move and dead-serious Vulcanus loved to see in his servants.

"Kodis. Stun — I repeat, STUN — the boy."

Kodis's special multi-functional blaster was raised and leveled at Trael in a flash. He ticked the switch from 'MURDER' to 'STUN', and appeared relieved that he didn't have to kill the child.

Trael's eyes shot to him. His face flared with surprise. "What? No! Vulc —"

A shot of yellow light hit his chest and silenced him. He froze rigid as a steel beam, eyes still bright and wide, lips parted in the middle of saying Vulcanus's name.

He looked so cute and desperate, Vulcanus thought. Innocence and trust radiated from him like light from a sun. _Touching, really. He would have made a lousy Sith._ No, Trael was definitely Jedi material. Had he stayed in his home dimension, he would have made a good one. _What a waste. _

"Communications," he said, not remembering or caring about the name of whomever he'd ascribed to the station, "Order up a needle of Kahlchite-Oxidose Fourteen. Dosage for a human child his size." He gestured to Trael, stiff in his posture.

"Affirmative." a vaguely-feminine voice responded.

Kahlchite-Oxidose Fourteen, Vulcanus knew, would put Trael in a deep sleep akin to hibernation from which he would not awaken for a full day no matter how roughly he was shaken, his heartbeat and breathing slowed to an almost lethal level. To the casual eye, he would appear dead.

His gaze swept the rest of his minions, still respectfully standing attention.

He gave them a severe look, his patience waning. "What are you guys waiting for, a miracle? Get back to work! And tell no one about this child, or I swear I'll force you to live out the rest of your pathetic lives as impoverished amputee Xernon miners in the Havolt mine."

The Havolt mine was the most dangerous in the galaxy with its slowly-debilitating poisonous fumes that killed its victims over the span of years, nasty inhabitants, labyrinth tunnels, steep shafts, and frequent collapses. Rather than sending droids to extract the precious metal, Vulcanus, Vader, and a number of their highest-ranking officers sent rebels and underperforming Imperial servants there as punishment. There they were forced to spend every waking hour working in the darkness of the mine, with only their helmet-lights to see by, chipping at and carting away hard rock to extract the desired element with only brief breaks for life's necessities. The labor was back-breaking. There was no pay and no medical assistance for the sick or wounded, who were whipped viciously by cruel overseers or their torture-droids if they faltered on the job. Most never got to see the light of day again. It was an agonizing, cruel death sentence.

"Yes SIR!" The workers obeyed at once, all too eager to resume their high-status, relatively comfortable jobs.

The communications worker relayed Vulcanus's message through her headset. Then she turned to face her king, looking very ill at ease. "Your Majesty, the emperor wishes to speak with you."

Vulcanus winced and made a face, wishing deeply that his father couldn't sense his presence so well. "Tell him I'm busy."

The worker — who sort of resembled a tall, slender human with bluish skin, four nimble arms, and long, white hair — paled, her already-oversized black eyes growing even larger with fear. "He — he says he's busy, Your Excellency." she almost squeaked into the mouthpiece. This was followed by a stony silence. Then she turned around and hit a button on her station, eliciting a frustrated groan from Vulcanus.

He knew what was coming.

"VULCANUS!" The overhead speakers shook the room with Darth Vader's angry roar, "REPORT!"

Vulcanus sighed. He really, really hated it when his father did this. "Mission a failure. Nothing else to report. Now, if you don't mind, I'm kinda busy here so —"

"Come meet me in Conference Room One."

_I have to take care of Trael first — I don't have time for this! _Vulcanus whipped up a quick, snide reply, counting on his father to cave in the way he usually did when he got ridiculously defiant over trivial things. "Yeah yeah, when I'm good and ready."

Just as he had hoped, when Vader next spoke his voice was firm but calmer, betraying the fact that he didn't feel like arguing. "Fine. You have fifteen minutes. I'd _better_ see you then." 'Better' was stressed with a growl.

"Fine, fine. Fifteen minutes. You got it." He aimed his next words at the communications girl. "Turn the intercom off."

Hearing no complaint from Vader, the nervous worker complied.

There was no time to lose. Vulcanus went over and jerked Kodis up out of his seat by the shoulder.

Kodis shivered as though he'd been blasted with ice.

Vulcanus spun him around so they were face-to-face. "Listen to me carefully," he said in an austerely no-nonsense tone, his eyes burning holes into his minion's retinas, "After the boy is injected with the solution, take him to the hangar and load him on the nearest transport ship. Make sure — very sure — everyone who sees you thinks he's dead, especially my father's minions. Hide him in a secret compartment. You know what I'm talking about. Make sure he is safe and comfortable. Then gather Sky Lieutenant Avena and four of your best men and wait for further instruction outside the transport ship. If anyone questions you, show them _this_" he opened a drawer at his computer station with a backward motion of his hand and without looking used the Force to pull out a thick, palm-sized isosceles triangle comprised of extremely rare, expensive, and specially-alloyed metals. This triangle was dark-brown with a bloodred 'V' positioned perfectly in the middle underneath a smaller triangle formed by its top point of the same color. The backside was a solid milky blue with the ghost image of the lines on the front sunken in. Vulcanus floated it into his waiting hand and then shoved it into Kodis's cold, sweaty palm. "and tell them it's top-secret."

Beads of sweat ran down Kodis's ashen face. He nodded vigorously. "Yes King Vulcanus. It will be done at once." His fingers tightened around the metal triangle.

Vulcanus gave him a dangerous leer. "Good." He released him and walked back to the computer station.

Kodis hurried at once to Trael's side to await the injection.

Flinging open one of his many drawers, Vulcanus pulled out a pad of brilliant gold-leafed paper measured with fine silver lines and set it on the immaculate top of his spacious desk. He flicked open the lid of a velvety black cube, and, from his assortment of pens, pulled out the very finest: a sleek black _Silvershadow Sharpex _with a bright crimson geffek feather decorating its end.

Removing the cap, he hovered the point over the paper as he contemplated what to say.

_Fifteen minutes. Should be enough time to compose a decent letter. If I can get my thoughts in order. _He took a deep breath and shut his eyes, relaxing so the words would come. The ticking of computer keystrokes filled his ears. _Okay, that's enough. _His eyes shot open. He began to write in his fanciest penmanship, which meant very loopy, slanted, and delicate letters:

_**Trael,**_

_**I don't apologise often, and when I do it is usually not heartfelt, but I truely am sorry it had to be this way. You never should have come with me. I admire your courage, persistence, and impekable taste in friends, but despite all you've been told you don't seem to really understand what the Sith are or how they work. I'm afraid I've been too kind to you. That was probably a mistake.**_

_**I have given my officers orders concerning you. Do as they say. Your new home is on a planet under my rule that my father finds hideously boring and will probably never, ever in a million years visit. You'll be safe from him there. Keep a low profile and **__don't_ _**draw attention to yourself. This includes telling people that we ever met, or that I'm your friend. Trust me, that will only make you a big fat target for my enemies, and if word should get out to my father — may the Force save you, because I won't be able to.**_

_**Also, I lied about the Jedi being extinct here. They're not quite yet, but they're very close. I'd be shocked if you encountered any, but just in case that happens do **__NOT_ _**make**_ _**yourself known to them, and **__UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES __**join them! If they discover you're Force-sensative and ask, tell them to get lost and leave you alone. If that doesn't work, tell them you're a loyalist. Really brag the Empire up. That should do it, but there's always a chance they might try to convert you. I don't care what kind of a sob-story they give **_— _**and they **__will_ _**give one **_— _**decline, decline, decline. Unless you want to be facing me as a true enemy someday.**_

The pen quivered over the next line, the black liquid ink turning a shiny metallic silver in the centers of the letters that had already been penned, leaving each predominantly silver with a thin black outline. Someone had brought the Kahlchite-Oxidose Fourteen up, and Vulcanus heard them administering it.

He re-read his paragraphs, and, satisfied with them, levitated another of the brown-and-red triangles marked with a 'V' over to him and dropped it next to the pad. Once more, pen glided over paper:

_**I've left you with my seal. Hide it. Keep it safe. It means you have my special protection. I usually only give these to those I send to speak on my behalf or carry out a special order so there can be no doubt they were sent by me and are acting on my command. Only use it in an extreme emergency. Simply show it to any Imperial presence and demand to be put in direct contact with me at once. By law they have to do it. I will order them to assist you in any way you need. Don't think of this as a way to see me again — the only way I will ever come to that planet is if my father does, and that would be bad news for you, me, and pretty much the whole planet. **_

_**So with this we part. Stay strong, weather the storm, and try to live a happy life. **_

_**Best of luck,**_

_**King Vulcanus **_

He wrote his signature in extra large, fancy letters.

Trael had been taken out of the room several minutes ago by this point, and Vulcanus knew he was going to be running a bit late to that appointment.

_Oh-well. Not like _that's _never happened before._

He folded the three single-sided pages into thirds and stuffed them and the seal inside a big sturdy black envelope, which he quickly sealed and slipped into a high-security chest he kept nearby that could only be opened with the Force.

He'd come back for it later, after he had given his father a partially fictional and much-abbreviated account of his trip through space-time. Then he'd rendezvous with Trael one last time in the transport ship and affix the envelope to him somehow, making sure it was secure in a place he couldn't lose it.

The crew would have strict orders to fly nonstop to Fescal, a primitive, backwater swamp-and-jungle world that nonetheless possessed a few hundred civilized colonies and some soft-hearted inhabitants. Upon arrival their job would be to adopt him out to the people of his choice, and the whole family would receive permanent tax-exemption from the Empire effective as long as Trael stayed in their care.

A sweet deal, really.

Who said Sith couldn't have a heart?

_He'll be fine, I'm sure of it._

As he made his way out of the room, Vulcanus noticed the hilt of a lightsaber on the floor in the spot Trael had been. The child hadn't been wearing a belt — it must have slipped off him when Vulcanus's men had moved him, and since their orders were never to touch a lightsaber on penalty of death they'd left the weapon where it lay for Vulcanus to deal with.

_Metal-Arm Anakin's lightsaber. I'd almost forgotten Trael had this. Too bad I can't give it back to him. _He opened his hand and pulled the lightsaber into it with the Force, the metal slapping his palm quietly.

He stared at it: a relict from another place and time, a piece of foreign history. It was also probably a pretty good clone of the blue-bladed lightsaber his father still kept from his Jedi days.

Vulcanus fastened it onto his belt next to his own. _This may come in handy someday,_ he thought as he headed out the electronic double-door, which drew apart for him. _You never know._

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_**A/N: **Visit my profile to see a pic of Darth Vulcanus's seal! Reviews are lovely and will be much appreciated. Please review! ( gets cute ) _


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